Voices of the Holocaust

Discussion in 'The Holocaust' started by Jan7, Jul 29, 2010.

  1. Jan7

    Jan7 Senior Member

    http://voices.iit.edu/

    In 1946, Dr. David P. Boder, a psychology professor from Chicago's Illinois Institute of Technology, traveled to Europe to record the stories of Holocaust survivors in their own words.

    Over a period of three months, he visited refugee camps in France, Switzerland, Italy, and Germany, carrying a wire recorder and 200 spools of steel wire, upon which he was able to record over 90 hours of first-hand testimony. These recordings represent the earliest known oral histories of the Holocaust, which are available through this online archive.





    [​IMG]

    Dr. David P. Boder with Armour wire recorder, Europe, 1946





    Jan.
     
  2. Drew5233

    Drew5233 #FuturePilot 1940 Obsessive

  3. Jan7

    Jan7 Senior Member

  4. Owen

    Owen -- --- -.. MOD

    part of me wants to listen, part of me doesn't want to get too depressed.
     
  5. Jan7

    Jan7 Senior Member

    part of me wants to listen, part of me doesn't want to get too depressed.

    You're right, Owen. I feel the same. Although I discovered many months ago on another audio forum, I thought in share it many times before yesterday.



    Jan.
     
  6. STAN50

    STAN50 Senior Member

    You're right, Owen. I feel the same. Although I discovered many months ago on another audio forum, I thought in share it many times before yesterday.



    Jan.


    This is quite understandable - it is such depressing subject matter. However, it needs to be 'aired' regardless because of the level of persecution which occurred. Interestingly, many survivors who came to the U.K. were often told by their hosts that they were truly sorry for what they'd been through but could they please not talk about it - it was too upsetting.
     
  7. Pritchard

    Pritchard Junior Member

    Believe it not I have an absolute interest in this subject, for some reason, not really the best subject to have an interst in but there you go.

    I feel very strongly about this and these stories need to be told and taught in schools, no matter how distressing it is, my way of thinking, right or wrong, we cannot bring these poor souls back, but if we can stop it happening again anywhere, then those poor souls have not died in vein. Let it be held a lesson to us all, no matter who people are and where they come from they are all humans and should be treated with respect and dignity.

    There was a film on the telly many years ago now, I think it was the middle 80s it was on BBC2 and they said they would only show this film once and never again, and they made it as realistic as they possibly could. So I sat down to watch, being in my middle 20s it was absolutely horrendous, I actually only manged to watch it for about 3/4 of an hour, and I just could take it any more it had to be turned off. Can't for the life of me remember what it is called, perhaps some on here knows.

    But I have watched something called "Shoa" (not spelt right) and it was 26 hours long, again it was shown on BBC2 absolutely riverting stuff. It was shown in "bits" of about 1 to 2 hours long I was setting my watch by it, when it finsihed jobs were done, when it started again jobs were left. Basically, it was just people telling their stories and what they remembered, no archive film, the camps were shown as there are today and models used, it was riverting and shocking at the same time, and what really got me and I have never forgotten it, was the fact that I always believed that the camps were "tucked away" somewhere quiet, but they were not, take Auschwitz there was a farmer plowing his filed right next door to the camp, I was completely "blown out of the water" could not belive it. Then there interviewed a man in Poland, can't remember where and there was a camp by the railway station, not one I had heard of before and the man said they could not understand why the camp would be full and then 2/3 days later it would be empty, they decided amonst themselves that the Germans must have been running trains at night to take them away, I will never forget that as long as live.

    Sorry to rattle on, but as I said I do have an interest in this, god knows why, but I do.
     
  8. Lofty1

    Lofty1 Senior Member

    Hi all, I have put on this link, it will bring you to 25 minutes of film, of a remarkable woman, and her tragic, yet uplifting story, regards lofty

    Honorary Graduates

    Dora Love is a Holocaust survivor, born in Lithuania and now settled in Colchester who educates younger generations about the Holocaust. She was deported to the Stutthoff concentration camp near Danzig (Gdansk) with her mother, sister and one brother. All, except Dora, perished.

    Although Stutthof was the only camp never liberated, Dora was one of a group that reached Neustadt/Holstein, on barges, on 3 May 1945. There she worked on translations for war crime trials for the British Army, UNRRA (United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration) and the American Joint Distribution Committee.

    After her marriage to Frank Love, a member of the British Army, she was reunited with her father in 1946. Her husband’s work took her to South Africa, where her two children were born. Her daughter became a freedom fighter in the South African Underground movement and later a member of the parliament led by Nelson Mandela. Dora’s son is Professor of Neuropathology in Bristol.

    You can watch a video of Dora Love's oration by accessing the following link:



    http://sernt3.essex.ac.uk/public/dora_love_oration.wmv
     
    CL1 likes this.
  9. Ron Goldstein

    Ron Goldstein WW2 Veteran WW2 Veteran

    Lest we forget !

    Ron
     
  10. STAN50

    STAN50 Senior Member

    Just looked and listened to the link. What a lady.
     
  11. Ron Goldstein

    Ron Goldstein WW2 Veteran WW2 Veteran

    Like, I would guess, most forum members, I am on various people's "mailing list".

    This means that every day I receive leters that have been circulated to large-ish groups of people, including myself, that the sender thought would be of interest to all those within the group.

    Amongst these circular letters, there is one I regularly get from Israel and today's post included this link: YouTube - ‪The silence of the Violin‬‏

    If you can spare the time, watch it to the end.

    Ron
     
    James S likes this.
  12. Son of POW-Escaper

    Son of POW-Escaper Senior Member

    A beautiful story, Ron.

    Many thanks for bringing it to our attention. I have shared it with my brother and his children.

    Marc
     
  13. James S

    James S Very Senior Member

    Thank you for the link Ron , an interesting story and all the more to hear the sound of the restored instrument, as the craftsman said " if only we could know what it saw" , it is fitting that it should no longer be silent.

    The book "Forgotten Voices of the Holocaust" is a book which I have but one which I could not read in total , pages here and there , now and then as I feel that I want to whilst I am not sure that I would agree with Owen as to it being depressing it certainly is a stark reminder of genocidal side of the Third Reich the men who made it a reality and the men and women of all walks of life who were murdered , endured and survived to bear witness to their collective experiences and to remember the dead.

    Sadly the down side of "Revisionist History" and the alleged "Revisionist Scholars") is the view that the men and women forced to "play" did so for the "entertainment" of prisoners, presenting this as "proof" that Auschwitz- Birkenau was actually a rather good place to be.
    ( An utterly distorted ,discredited and the same tired old lies which the internet is used to promote and which U Tube has been hijacked as a means of distributing this ugly and hate ridden deceit).

    Education is the means of preserving memory and reminding us of evil.

    ‪The Auschwitz: Oswiecim, Poland‬‏ - YouTube

    Built first for the enslavement and murder of Soviet POW's. These same POW's were the first people to be experimented on and gassed,from which the downward drift and evolution of genocide took its shape and gained its pace.
     
  14. STAN50

    STAN50 Senior Member

    27th January. Lest we forget.
     
  15. Gerard

    Gerard Seelow/Prora

    Well said Stan.
     

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