JURIJ DEVETAK AND BORIS PAHOR: NECROPOLIS The graphic novel Necropolis, based on the famous autobiographical novel by Boris Pahor—one of the central figures of European culture and a steadfast warning against the re-emergence of totalitarianism—was created by Trieste-based artist Jurij Devetak.

In the novel Necropolis, the writer—who, in his stance as a responsible intellectual, constantly warned against forgetting history and spoke out against attempts to curtail human and national freedoms and rights—describes his experiences of life in concentration camps. First published in 1967, the novel opens with the author’s visit to the memorial park at the Natzweiler-Struthof concentration camp, and then recounts his experiences in other camps (Dachau, Bergen-Belsen, etc.) to which he was sent after his arrest.

Judging by the many translations and responses, Necropolis is considered one of the finest literary testimonies to life in the camps in world literature. The illustrator has deliberately avoided direct depictions of camp scenes in his drawings, instead “following the author’s path, he went to the very depths of camp nihilism and taking on the mission of conveying the writer’s homage to the ‘humbled bones,’” as Zdravko Duša, author of the afterword to the graphic novel, summed up his impressions.

“I realized that now was the time for my conspirator … so I stopped and looked at the tall grass beyond the barbed wire. It is innocent, I know, and yet its silent persistence in growing seems pointless.”

“Yes, it was my own fault because I concerned myself only with the sick and did not socialize with the leaders; I didn’t care about making a place for myself anywhere.”

“We got used to it. Man can get used to anything. We grew numb.”

“Someone said that the Russian boy smiled when they put the noose around his neck, and to all of us it felt as if, with that smile, forgiveness was coming through the thick fog from a great distance— because the watery food was good, so warm, and the steam so pleasant that you almost couldn’t feel the dampness on your back, and because the spoon, with such great hope, searched for a piece of potato as it scraped the iron bottom.”

“And so I am attached to it as to the Sahara Desert, where a man becomes a flame among flames. Only the desert’s fire is pure, its sandy hourglass innocent … whereas here human hands stoked the ovens, and the soil of this world is mixed with ashes. I am a resident of this place.”

“The first condition for even the slightest chance of survival is the strict removal of all images that do not belong to the kingdom of evil…”