GraphicMEMOIRBlog | Creator Conversation #92
Last week, during a chat with Corinne Pearlman, cofounder of The First Graphic Novel Award (the award for UK graphic novelists looking to make their published debuts), she mentioned a new World War II graphic memoir that she thought would be right up my street: Henryk’s Escape by South London-based illustrator Yolanta Gawlik. As it happened, Yolanta’s Kickstarter campaign had just entered its final week, making it an ideal moment to get in touch and learn more about both the book and the remarkable true story behind it.
👉 Back Henryk’s Escape on Kickstarter
We spoke about the inspiration behind the book, the years of historical research that shaped it, and why preserving her father’s story had become such an important personal mission.
Henryk’s Escape tells the true story of Yolanta’s father, Henryk, who, at just sixteen years old, escaped from a German forced labour camp in occupied Poland in 1944 before embarking on an extraordinary seven-week journey home through forests and war-torn countryside.
The book explores a remarkable story of courage and endurance while also shining a light on the experiences of Polish civilians deported to Germany for forced labour during the Second World War.
Finding the right story
Although Henryk’s Escape became the centrepiece of her MA in Illustration Authorial Practice at Falmouth University, the project had been quietly developing for years.
“My father told me the story when I was much younger,” Yolanta explains. “I never wrote it down and, over time, I realised I had forgotten parts of it. That meant I had to become a researcher as well as an author.”
The breakthrough came when she discovered her father’s personnel file at the University of Łódź, where he later worked for four decades and eventually became a professor.
“That confirmed places and dates I had forgotten. Once I knew where he had been taken, I could begin reconstructing the route he walked home.”
What followed was years of detective work.
Yolanta studied wartime maps of Polish forests, traced Henryk’s probable journey village by village, and researched military activity, partisan movements and German operations taking place at precisely the time he would have passed through.
“Everything that appears in the book actually happened,” she says. “My imagination wasn’t about inventing history—it was about placing my father within events that we know occurred.”
A forgotten history of forced labour
When Yolanta began researching her father’s wartime experience, she quickly realized how little of this history has made its way into contemporary literature. Despite the wealth of graphic memoirs exploring the Second World War, she found a stark silence around the experiences of young Polish forced laborers.
“I couldn’t find any graphic novels about children taken to Germany as forced laborers,” she says. “There was very little information, even from official institutions.”
Her father was just fourteen when he was deported to work in Germany.
For two and a half years he endured brutal conditions before escaping during the final year of the war.
Returning home was only the beginning.
The deprivation he experienced during his teenage years permanently affected his health and physical development.
“He never reached his full height because he was undernourished at such an important stage of his life.”
Yet Henryk’s story is ultimately one of resilience rather than victimhood.
The navigation skills that enabled him to survive his escape later inspired him to study cartography, eventually becoming a university lecturer—a remarkable transformation for the son of a farming family.
“That escape shaped the person he became.”
Why a graphic novel?
Although trained as a graphic designer, Yolanta had never created a graphic novel before embarking on Henryk’s Escape.
The Falmouth MA encouraged students to treat writing and illustration as equal partners.
“We had wonderful writing workshops. Before then I’d only written short stories, but the course gave me confidence.”
While developing the book, Yolanta immersed herself in graphic memoirs and literary comics. Among the creators she particularly admires are Dominique Goblet (Pretending Is Lying), Nora Krug (Belonging), Bernice Eisenstein (I Was a Child of Holocaust Survivors), Alison Stewart, Posy Simmonds (Tamara Drewe), and Spanish cartoonist Ilu Ros, whose graphic biography Federico left a lasting impression.
Her visual approach deliberately avoids repetition.
“I wanted every spread to feel different. Some pages use traditional comic panels, others become full-page illustrations or double-page spreads. I was always thinking about the graphic design as well as the storytelling.”
The value of good editorial advice
Like many debut creators, Yolanta benefited from experienced editorial guidance. Although she was not longlisted for the First Graphic Novel Award, several months later Corinne Pearlman contacted her with thoughtful feedback and generously offered to mentor the project. Yolanta was also guided by acclaimed cartoonist and tutor Rachael Ball during her MA course at Falmouth.
“I was incredibly grateful,” Yolanta says of the support she received from both mentors.
Initially, the manuscript had been written entirely in the third person. Pearlman’s guidance helped structure the book into a much clearer three-part narrative: an introduction explaining the extensive historical research, the core graphic narrative itself, and a poignant epilogue showing what became of Henryk after the war.
“As a reader, I always want to know what happened afterwards,” Yolanta says. “That’s what I wanted this book to give people.”
Publishing independently
Rather than pursuing a traditional publishing deal, Yolanta turned to Kickstarter to fund an initial print run of 400 full-colour copies.
The campaign serves two purposes: it finances the printing while simultaneously building an audience before publication.
“It’s a wonderful feeling knowing there are already readers waiting for the book.”
The graphic novel will be published in both English and Polish.
Interestingly, Yolanta wrote the entire book in English before translating it herself into Polish with editorial assistance from a colleague in Łódź.
Having lived in Britain for thirty-five years, she says writing creatively in English now feels entirely natural.
More than one family’s story
Although Henryk’s Escape chronicles one remarkable escape, Yolanta hopes readers leave with a broader understanding of war’s lasting human cost.
“I want people to realise how terrible war really is and how deeply it affects ordinary families.”
She also hopes younger readers discover practical lessons in resilience.
Her father survived by reading landscapes, understanding nature and making countless small decisions that kept him alive.
“He taught me many of those survival techniques when I was a child.”
In telling her father’s story, Yolanta has rescued a small but important piece of wartime history that deserves to be better known.
Like the best graphic memoirs, Henryk’s Escape reminds us that history is never simply about dates and battles. It is about ordinary people whose courage, endurance and determination deserve to be remembered.
Article written by Jonathan Sandler, author of The English GI: World War II Graphic Memoir, curator of the GraphicMEMOIRBlog, and Advisor to Mensch Publishing.
This post is so rich in both author journey and the book’s story content and art samples. Thank you!!
Delighted you picked up on Yolanta’s book so quickly, Jonathan! Lovely to read this.