Unex­pect­ed Pas­sages is a fifty-two page graph­ic nov­el about Rachel Scheer’s grand­fa­ther, Irv­ing Gwertz­man’s, escape from Poland dur­ing the Holo­caust via Lithua­nia, Japan, and Chi­na. Adapt­ed from fam­i­ly sto­ries and trans­lat­ed Yid­dish wartime cor­re­spon­dences, the graph­ic nov­el is the cul­mi­na­tion of a decade of work as an auto­bi­o­graph­i­cal car­toon­ist and a life­time of col­lect­ing family’s sto­ries and pri­ma­ry doc­u­ments from the Holocaust.