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the holocaust survivors essay
survivor holocaust essay
survivor holocaust essay
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Holocaust Survivor Testimonies:
Time, Methodology and Memory
STATEMENT OF PURPOSE
The purpose of my request for Fall 2010 sabbatical leave is to allow for the research necessary to initiate my study of Holocaust survivor testimonies. During the requested semester, I will begin investigating the characteristics of both large scale national oral history projects as well as smaller local and regional efforts to collect testimonies from Holocaust Survivors. At the end of the semester, I will have the necessary data to begin analyzing my results and begin writing for publication.
DESCRIPTION OF PROJECT
During this, the initial stages of a new research project, I will begin to accumulate data that specifically informs the processes attendant to interviewing Holocaust survivors. In the 65 years since the end of World War II, there have been well over 100 academic institutions, memorial organizations and individual scholars who have interviewed and collected oral histories of Holocaust survivors (http://www.ushmm.org/research/collections/oralhistory/search/). These efforts are mainly the work of Jewish organizations and the major collections of testimonies have been with Jewish survivors. But some collections also focus on and include and other Holocaust survivor groups. The beginning stages of my research will include gathering information on the scale, scope, processes and methodology used in the largest interview projects (United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Voices of the Shoah Project and the Fortunoff Online Video Archive at Yale University). The preliminary phase of my project will focus on a comparative analysis of the rationales, formulations and goals of the interview activities.
Proposed Research
With ...
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...the information was collected) affected the nature of the information solicited, the responses of the interviewees and the process of transcription.
While transcriptions are less troublesome in the age of the video testimony, I believe interviewer training and qualifications; the construction of interview guides and the goals of the sponsoring organization may have shaped the nature of the data that was (and is still being) collected. This study will contribute to the fields of qualitative sociology by exploring the influence and interplay between methodology, culture and history. It will also provide insights into the effects of time and culture on the content and nature of Holocaust survivor testimonies. As such, I hope it will also more generally contribute to the fields of Holocaust studies, sociological methodology as well as to the sociology of knowledge.
When in America, Helen found that it was hard not to talk about past and the stories of her imprisonment. “Some survivors found it impossible to talk about their pasts. By staying silent, they hoped to bury the horrible nightmares of the last few years. They wanted to spare their children and those who knew little about the holocaust from listening to their terrible stories.” In the efforts to save people from having to hear about the gruesome past, the survivors also lacked the resources to mentally recovery from the tragedy.
Wood, Angela Gluck. Holocaust: the events and their impact on real people. New York, NY: DK Publishing, Inc, 2007. 122.
Rosenbaum, Alan S. Is The Holocaust Unique?. 3rd ed. Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press, 2008. 387. Print.
"A Teacher's Guide to the Holocaust-Victims." A Teacher's Guide to the Holocaust-Victims. University of South Florida. Web. 19 May 2014.
Soumerai, Eve N., and Carol D. Schulz. "The Changing Lives of Jews." Daily Life During the Holocaust. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1998. 57+. Print.
Ben Moche, a Holocaust survivor, was interviewed about his life and how the Holocaust changed his way of living. Grele stated that most interviews are not credible, however Moche’s interview refutes this with the way the interviewer and the interviewee interacted with each other.
As the years distance us from the Nazi horror, and as survivors are slowly starting to lessen in number, we are faced, as a nation, with the challenge of how to educate the new generations of the Holocaust. Many young people have no knowledge of the events that took place in World War II. However, today, artifacts can greatly contribute to the understanding of the Holocaust, just as the movie La Rafle (The Round Up) did for me. The Round Up by Roselyn Bosch shows that the mass arrest of Jews did not only happening in Germany and it also emphasized the cruel dramatic irony of this historical moment.
Tent, James F. In the Shadow of the Holocaust: Nazi Persecution of Jewish-Christian Germans. Kansas: University Press of Kansas, 2003.
Weitzman, Lenore , and Dalia Ofer. Women in the Holocaust. Yale University Express, 1999. eBook.
The concentration camps, the heartless medical testings, the gas chambers, the death marches, and the aftermath—there is so much to learn about it. Having the opportunity to be drenched in so much information for not one day, not two days, but three days would be a once in a lifetime chance. Furthermore, the prospect of educating others will leave a lasting impact not only upon myself, but everyone that I would be able to teach as well. The sharing of knowledge in such a controversial and powerful period of dark history is not something everyone can experience. Because of all these reasons, I would enjoy partaking in this Holocaust studies and consequently educating 10th Graders about this subject in more detail than they may ever be
When individuals think about the Holocaust, most place the responsibility of the terrible events on the perpetrators. However, bystanders played one of the largest roles in the Holocaust (Evans, Carrell) simply by staying safe for way too long (Florida Center) and the world wants to make sure it never happens again (Shriver Jr., Donald W).
"A Teacher's Guide to the Holocaust-Victims." Victims. Florida Center for Instructional Technology, 14 July 09. Web. 16 May 2014.
One of the many perks of being my mother’s daughter is that I’ve been able to go with her to workshops about the Holocaust both that she’s attended and created. Because of that, I have been fortunate enough to listen to survivors of the Holocaust and other genocides give testimony right in front of me. One thing I’ve observed through my exposure to Holocaust testimony is that I don’t know much about the topic of Holocaust resistance.
Many of the readers and listeners who have encountered Marion’s Holocaust story and her speech years later about her experience was hugely impacted from the sorrow and dread that was felt in assimilating the mortifying details of her history. The description of her story baffled the minds of many people.
Worried that with the absence of a tellable Holocaust story society could become malicious deniers or exceedingly ignorant, Jewish survivors maintain that to fail to recall the Holocaust undoubtedly escapes justice as well as culpability on the part of the German perpetrators. As it is necessary to face the scope of their own collective moral failure, Jewish survivors are adamant that German perpetrators have a duty to remember so as to see the Holocaust as a lesson of never again rather than as an incident that they can get away with. Within this essay, there will be a strong focus toward thoroughly analyzing whether or not the Holocaust should be consigned to history or if there is a need to preserve the truth. As well, by exploring the perspectives of both German perpetrators as well as Jewish survivors, this paper endeavors