“Unveiling the Past: Joanna Rubin Dranger’s Graphic Memoir Reveals Hidden Stories of Resilience and Remembrance”
Archival research became a crucial part of my journey. I searched records at places like Yad Vashem, the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, and Swedish archives, cross-referencing information to verify details. Sometimes I would follow long research paths only to find no answers at all; other times, I uncovered facts that completely reshaped my understanding of my family’s past.
Digitization has transformed this kind of research. The vast online archives of Yad Vashem, for example, allowed me to access documents that, in the past, would have required traveling across the world to find. Being able to search by name, place, or even a fragment of information enabled me to piece together connections in ways that would have been unthinkable just a few decades ago. However, researching Jewish relatives often comes with additional challenges, especially due to variations in spelling and transliterations from Yiddish, Hebrew, or other languages into English and other alphabets.
