In recent years, comics have been one of the media that has best reflected the drama of war victims, immigrants and refugees; with authors and titles as prominent as Palestine and Jerusalem (Joe Sacco), La crack (Carlos Spottorno and Guillermo Abril), Asylum (Javier de Isusi), As if they had never been (Javier and Juan Gallego), A dangerous journey (several authors ), Refugees, solidarity vignettes (several authors)…
Titles to which Escaping from war and waves is now added. Meetings with Syrian Refugees (The Wonder Room), by the German Olivier Kugler. A work as beautiful as it is heartbreaking in which the photojournalist narrates his encounters, for more than three years, with Syrian refugees. And where he summarizes their stories that, unfortunately, tend to be similar: almost everyone flees the war to save their lives, leaving behind not only their material possessions but also, in many cases, their loved ones or their corpses .
During those three years, Olivier Kugler traveled with Doctors Without Borders to Iraqi Kurdistan, to the Greek island of Kos and to the Calais refugee camp (France), known as “The Jungle”, where refugees try to cross the English Channel on his way to the UK. He also met refugees in London, Birmingham and Zimmonzheim, the small German town where Kugler grew up.
And it does so with a book that combines the hardness of the stories with hope and that has a truly spectacular design that has earned it the jury prize at the 2018 European Design Awards .
Illustration of ‘Escape from the war and the waves’
Inspiring stories
Very hard stories of people who have to flee their homes to survive and, if they are lucky and don’t die in a shipwreck, or from hunger, or from diseases… they manage to reach countries where they are not wanted and prefer look the other way . Countries that also use them as a bargaining chip to cover up the main problems facing today’s Europe, which is increasingly divided.
Despite all these hardships, most of the refugees do not lose hope or joy , although their future is at least uncertain. That is why the lives Kugler portrays in this book are both tragic and inspiring at the same time. A testimony of the foolishness of the human being, but also of his resilience.
There are also very interesting and hopeful testimonies of immigrants who have managed to adapt to Europe and start a new life .
A book in which the reporter cares, above all, about the people he interviews, about reflecting on the torments they have suffered but also on their dreams and hopes of achieving a better life . Though most would be content to survive. And many of them just want to be able to return home without being killed, they don’t come to Europe to beg.
A book that does not pretend that we do not feel sorry for the refugees but that we simply understand what it is like to lose everything except hope in a better future . And have the courage to move forward, trusting in a better future.
An illustrated treasure
But as we say, despite the hardness of the stories, the book is an illustrated treasure and has a design that is as novel as it is spectacular , in a way that seems to attract us to enter its pages and visit those refugee camps from which we almost we can feel the dust.
Also highlight the faces of the crisis, those of its protagonists, who will leave an indelible mark on our hearts .
In addition, Kugler also offers us interesting reflections on the importance of giving refugees a voice , that we listen to them so that we know them better, because the only way to help them is to know them , understand their world and their culture.
There is a testimony that reflects all this very well, that of a woman who told the reporter: “I hoped that in Europe I would be treated with respect . ” A very simple request but one that we often forget. Just like we skip human rights when we feel like it.
An antidote to indifference
Today we seem immune to television reporting on refugees . Our brain immediately forgets them because we prefer to focus on more pleasant things. Some go even further and, unfortunately, the wave of racism and intolerance against immigration is increasingly worrying throughout the world and in Spain (forgetting that Spain has always been a country of immigrants).
This book, with its heartbreaking statements and its portrait of the hopes of immigrants , is the best antidote to the indifference that has taken hold of us. And its beauty makes things more assimilable for our brain; so that, instead of looking the other way, as we usually do, we will find ourselves accompanying these immigrants on their difficult journey.
That is why we recommend Escaping from war and waves, a book that children should read in schools and politicians in their armchairs and that should not be missing from any library , because when newspaper articles and television reports about the refugees from Syria have fallen into oblivion, many of us will keep this book as a heartbreaking, but beautiful, testimony of a crisis that we would like not to be repeated (one also lives with illusion).
We would also like to highlight the excellent edition of The Room of Wonders of a book as complicated as this one, in which drawing and texts are integrated in the way you can see in the images.
