Due to the generation shift, the central challenge has become to preserve the memories of the survivors of National Socialist persecution and to anchor these within 21st century cultural memory. In this transition phase, which includes rapid technical developments within information and communications technology, high expectations are being made of the collections of survivors audio and video interviews. This publication reflects the interdisciplinary debates currently taking place on the various digital techniques of preserving eyewitness interviews. The focus is how the changes in media technology are affecting the various fields of work, which include storage/archiving, education as well as the reception of the interviews.
"This behind-the-scenes account details the emotionally complex fifteen-year struggle surrounding the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum's birth."--
Holocaust Memory in the Digital Age explores the nexus of new media and memory practices, raising questions about how advances in digital technologies continue to influence the nature of Holocaust memorialization. Through an in-depth study of the largest and most widely available collection of videotaped interviews with survivors and other witnesses to the Holocaust, the University of Southern California Shoah Foundation's Visual History Archive, Jeffrey Shandler weighs the possibilities and challenges brought about by digital forms of public memory. The Visual History Archive's holdings are extensive—over 100,000 hours of video, including interviews with over 50,000 individuals—and came about at a time of heightened anxiety about the imminent passing of the generation of Holocaust survivors and other eyewitnesses. Now, the Shoah Foundation's investment in new digital media is instrumental to its commitment to remembering the Holocaust both as a subject of historical importance in its own right and as a paradigmatic moral exhortation against intolerance. Shandler not only considers the Archive as a whole, but also looks closely at individual survivors' stories, focusing on narrative, language, and spectacle to understand how Holocaust remembrance is mediated.
A narrative analysis of memoirs of six holocaust survivors from a single family, this book examines strategies of self-preservation and resilience in young people exposed to persecution at different ages and life stages. It argues that holocaust-era stories can enhance understanding of today's child refugees.
Abe Korn was only 16 when the Nazis invaded his hometown of Lipno, Poland, on the first day of World War II. He survived the entire war as a Jewish prisoner, enduring two Nazi ghettos, eight concentration camps, and a 45-day Death March from Auschwitz. Astonishingly, Abe kept his sense of human dignity- with gangrenous feet he struggled to stay on the healthy workers list; with scan supplies he bargained for food and coal and helped others survive. Abe never gave up hope. He always believed he could live one more day, and on April 11, 1945, when Buchenwald was liberated, Abe was finally free. After Liberation, Abe focused on going to school and earning a living. Eventually, as a man earnest to forgive past sins and take individuals at face value, he married a German Lutheran, who later converted to Judaism. They moved to the United States, where Abe had a remarkably successful business. Abram Korn died in 1972. Abe left the rough draft of a manuscript of his story. Twenty years after his death, Abe's son, Joey began completing his father's story and the First Edition of Abe's Story was published by Longstreet Press on April 11th, 1995, the fiftieth anniversary of Abe's liberation. The current edition is published by Sugarcreek Press. To the family he raised proudly in the Jewish tradition, Abe left a legacy of powerful inspiration. For modern-day readers seeking the best in Holocaust literature and riveting drama, Abe's Story is an incredible story of hope, of the human potential to do good in the face of horrible evil. Abe's Story is about hope, not despair. It's about life, not death. It's a powerful source of inspiration for a all who read it. "Important testimony." ¬- Elie Wiesel, Nobel Peace Price Laureate and author of Night. "Powerful. Unforgettable. Abe's Story is an inspiration to all who read it." - Pat Conroy, author of Prince of Tides and Beach Music. "An extraordinary memoir by an Auschwitz survivor, whose son rescued the manuscript from oblivion." - John Stoessinger, Trinity University, author of Might of Nations and Why Nations Go to War.'
"Perhaps there is no simple, easy way to educate children about the Holocaust. Yet [this] new extraordinary work in the form of a nonfiction graphic novel for children is a valiant attempt to do just that. These testimonials... serve as a reminder never to allow such a tragedy to happen again."—BookTrib Between 1933 and 1945, Adolf Hitler and the Nazi party were responsible for the persecution of millions of Jews across Europe. This extraordinary graphic novel tells the true stories of six Jewish children who survived the Holocaust. From suffering the horrors of Auschwitz, to hiding from Nazi soldiers in war-torn Paris, to sheltering from the Blitz in England, each true story is a powerful testament to the survivors' courage. These remarkable testimonials serve as a reminder never to allow such a tragedy to happen again. Features a current photograph of each contributor and an update about their lives, along with a glossary and timeline to support reader understanding of this period in world history.
The Azrieli Foundation established the Sustaining Memories Project to help survivors write their stories. A unique partnership between survivors and volunteer writing partners who were trained to work with Holocaust survivors on recording and transcribing their stories, volunteers spent countless hours on these testimonies. The strength of the bonds that form when a volunteer and a survivor create a memoir, of the emotional challenges that a survivor faces in the telling and the understanding, and the insight that the listener experiences were all part of an incredible journey. Excerpts of these co-written memoirs, never before published, are produced in this anthology to give readers a wide range of understanding of the varieties of experiences of Holocaust survivors. Sustaining Memories gives voice to Canadian Jews who suffered through ghettos, camps, hiding, fighting in the underground, as refugees in foreign countries or passing as non-Jews in daily fear of betrayal. Following their liberation, survivors often had to congregate in displaced persons camps, where many married, had children and waited years for countries to offer them new homes. Some would end up in the detention camps of Cyprus on their way to pre-state Israel; others found themselves locked behind the Iron Curtain for decades. Between 1946 and the 1980s, they all built new lives in Canada.
The following research was prepared as a study into Holocaust survivors in Buffalo, NY and their coping abilities post World War II. The research, analysis, and conclusions made from this study made it possible to have a deeper understanding of victims’ lives during and post WWII Holocaust. This included what their day to day was like during WWII, what the victims did to survive, what was life like immediately after the War, and how have they been coping since. By having an honest discourse on the survivors’ experiences, I was able to better understand how each subject’s story combined different types of narratives, including chaos, restitution, and quest narratives as well as their own cultural, autobiographical, and collective memories. Furthermore, preserving the subjects past, the victim was able to provide future generations a history, understanding, and education of their experiences, so their trauma was not in vain. The interviews were conducted, videotaped and transcribed. They were also analyzed and compared to the theories of Arthur Frank, Maurice Halbwachs, Susan Feldman, Read Johnson, and Marilyn Ollayos amongst others. This allowed for the subjects’ discourse to be used as a glimpse into the study of how communication preserves, educates, and heals victims. After the Holocaust, many survivors were left with little or no assistance in trying to cope with what just happened to them and their loved ones. The psychological damage to survivors was extreme, with few available affective studies and programs available in how to deal with that damage, including, depression, anxiety or physical stress and trauma. Research has proved that the management of these ailments can be supported by utilizing various methods to manage one’s psychology. By using communication as a management tool for psychological ailments, we can see how survivors cope, interact, and impact themselves, friends, and strangers. The results of this research contribute to discussions of the role of communication in PTSD survivors. Through conversations and writing, survivors may then attempt to heal their bouts with depression and anxiety, and at the same time preserve their autobiography. The benefits of storytelling become twofold; the story teller addresses their trauma and the story teller educates, and becomes part of a process of collective memory for the passing on of these stories, and Holocaust survivor motto: “Never Again” to future generation.
