Autobiographical Comics in Michel Kishka’s Second Generation: Things I Didn’t Tell My Father

Abstract

Michel Kishka’s autobiographical comics Second Generation: The Things I 
Didn’t Tell My Father is a first-person account of his life as a member of 
the second generation of Holocaust survivors in relation to the ‘other’ – his 
father, the Holocaust survivor. The main challenge facing the autobiographer 
is turning the course of his life events into words and images while 
committing himself to factual truth. Kishka’s comics integrates reality into 
the fabric of the graphic novel. By treating the heavily charged subject of 
the Holocaust via literary-poetic and artistic-visual means, his comics turns 
into a comprehensive literary-visual creation. Kishka uses intertextual 
allusions from different artistic fields, such as literature, cinema, painting, 
and photography, in addition to other poetic means utilized in the visual 
images, such as dreams, parallelisms, and metonymies that illustrate human 
situations. Humor is Kishka’s main means of expression in dealing with 
being a member of the second generation of Holocaust survivors and with the 
ethical-aesthetic dilemma facing every autobiographer: exposing the other's 
life with criticism and judgment. Eventually, Kishka’s ethical dilemma results 
in love and reconciliation following a process of identification, understanding, 
compassion, and forgiveness towards his father, who experienced the horrors 
of the Holocaust.