ABOUT BOOK

Rose + Robert (R+R) is a graphic novel based on a true historical story whose emotional core lies in a love interrupted by state violence. Rose, a young woman from the GDR, and Robert, from West Germany, meet by chance at Lake Balaton in the 1970s. After returning to opposite sides of the border, they continue their relationship through letters — until surveillance, suspicion, and fabricated accusations lead to Rose’s arrest and imprisonment, including time in the notorious Hoheneck women’s prison.

I joined the project as an illustrator and visual author and immediately felt a deep connection to the story. At that time, I was already exhausted from constantly working with narratives of repression and political violence and felt a growing need to tell a story about love. Yet politics proved inescapable. Through archival research and personal testimonies, the project became what it ultimately is: a political love story — intimate, fragile, and deeply human.

The book unfolds through two intertwined narrative layers. One reconstructs Rose’s historical biography, based on archival materials and the life story presented at the Andreasstraße Memorial in Erfurt.

The other follows a first-person narrator — an illustrator in exile — whose research journey becomes a reflection on displacement, memory, and the difficulty of belonging after forced migration. These layers allow the story to remain open, fragmentary, and honest about uncertainty.

A key narrative decision was to introduce Robert as a fictional, composite character. He serves not as a factual witness but as a device — a figure through whom ambiguity, guilt, responsibility, and the unreliability of memory can be explored. In contrast, Rose’s own diaries form the most trustworthy voice in the book and became a crucial foundation for my visual interpretation.

Visually, the project is built as a coherent system. Bright, theatrical scenes set at Lake Balaton gradually give way to stark black-and-white prison sequences, mirroring the emotional and moral rupture in the story. The visual language draws on editorial illustration, documentary storytelling, and personal drawing practices, balancing metaphor with restraint.

While rooted in German history, R+R inevitably resonates with the present. Repression, imprisonment, and the silencing of dissent continue today, particularly in Russia and Belarus. The book explicitly acknowledges this continuity, including a page dedicated to contemporary political prisoners and a reference to the 2024 prisoner exchange between Russia and Western countries.

At its core, R+R is not only a story about the past.

It is a book about love under pressure, ethical responsibility, and the fragile persistence of human dignity — across borders, systems, and generations.