Highlights Archives
Holocaust Survivors' Stories Coming Soon
In just a few weeks the Wisconsin Historical Society will publish a website where visitors can read and listen to interviews with 22 survivors of the Nazi Holocaust who settled in Wisconsin. Between 1933 and 1945 more than 17 million people were imprisoned, deported, killed, sent to forced labor or made homeless by the Nazis and their Axis allies. About 140,000 of the survivors came to the United States. More than 1,000 settled in Wisconsin. Many of these survivors' stories have previously been documented in the Wisconsin Historical Society Press volume, Voices of the Wisconsin Past: Remembering the Holocaust.
Oral Histories Preserve Survivors' Recollections
Wisconsin Historical Society archivists interviewed 22 of these survivors between 1974 and 1981. They settled not only in Milwaukee and Madison, but all over the state — in Superior, Merrill, Green Bay, Kenosha and Monroe. The project gathered nearly 200 hours of tape recordings, more than 3,400 pages of typed transcripts, and several hundred photographs.
These materials are being made available digitally in their entirety for the first time, uncensored and unfiltered. The narrators came from all over Europe, from Greece in the south to Poland in the north, Holland in the west to Russia in the east. Their experiences encompass a wide variety of responses to persecution, including emigrating abroad, hiding underground, working at forced labor, and surviving the death camps. Most of the people interviewed were children or teenagers when they lived through these horrors.
The site will also include interviews with an American soldier about his visit to Dachau just after it was liberated and with a U.N. resettlement official from Milwaukee who helped thousands of survivors start new lives.
Each interview presents a vivid eyewitness account of one person's odyssey through the Holocaust and immigration to Wisconsin. The site will offer biographies, full transcripts, full audio recordings and pictures. Most interviews also describe life in the Jewish communities of Wisconsin during the 1950s and 1960s and the survivors' thoughts on American culture. Users will be able to read these materials on our website or download them for free to their own computer (for nonprofit, educational use).
A section of excerpts provides 44 short anecdotes and audio clips on topics such as prewar life in Europe, formation of ghettoes, conditions in concentration camps, life in hiding, acts of resistance, liberation, and starting new lives in postwar Europe and Wisconsin. These brief stories encapsulate powerful moments in the lives of the survivors who tell them. Most of them will also evoke powerful responses in readers and listeners.
All the excerpts are not grim. Many describe the faith and optimism of their narrators. A few are even amusing, such as this one about Herb DeLevie's cat (follow that link to see how the 44 excerpts will be delivered to users).
Survivors' Stories as an Educational Resource
Teachers will find stories selected for use with students at all levels, including those in the elementary grades. They will also be connected with lesson plans and classroom activities from the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum and other reputable sites.
The work has been funded by a grant from the Helen Bader Foundation of Milwaukee, the Wisconsin Historical Foundation, and generous gifts from private donors.
Watch this space in May and June for announcements that the site is complete. Meanwhile, you can browse photographs kept by the survivors at Wisconsin Historical Images.
:: Posted April 20, 2009
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