ENGLISH CORNER, CON LINDA JIMÉNEZ – This week’s trivia question:  How did Ari’s experience visiting Auschwitz differ from what he had expected?

Ari Richter is a New York-based visual artist and comics creator, born in Tampa, Florida, in 1983. He received a fully public education from grade school to graduate school, and is currently a Professor of Fine Arts at LaGuardia Community College of the City University of New York.

Richter has received fellowships from the Mellon Foundation/American Council of Learned Societies, and the Memorial Foundation for Jewish Culture, multiple project grants from the CUNY Research Foundation, and residencies from the Vermont Studio Center and the University of Texas at Dallas. His drawings, sculptures, videos and performances have been presented at the Skirball Cultural Center, the National Museum of American Jewish History and the Tampa Museum of Art, among others.  His graphic work has also been featured in Tablet Magazine. 

His debut book, Never Again Will I Visit Auschwitz: A Graphic Family Memoir of Trauma & Inheritance is based on the memoirs of his two grandfathers and one of his great-grandfathers, all Holocaust survivors from Germany. At the same time, he reflects on how to pass on their legacy to the next generation, and also on the responsibility and vulnerability of being a Jew in present-day America.