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Oral History Project

The Holocaust Center’s Oral History Project has recorded and continues to preserve detailed oral histories with survivors and witnesses to the Holocaust. Our interviewees include people who lived through concentration camps and forced labor, those who survived in hiding or under false papers, as well as rescuers, liberators, émigrés or refugees, and other witnesses who lived under the Nazi regime.

To date, our oral history archive consists of over 2,000 audio and video testimonies with accompanying documents, transcriptions, and informational materials such as photographs and letters. These interviews record for posterity a complete picture of the realities of the Holocaust as experienced by individuals living in a multitude of European countries occupied by Nazi Germany.

We understand that the stories of survivors have a meaning that reaches far beyond that of Europe in the 1930s and 1940s. The accounts of these survivors explore the relationship between discrimination, violence, genocide, and war. Their testimonies break the silence that is a consequence of trauma and oppression. We believe that it is our obligation to preserve these stories, which retain a striking relevance to the survival of the human race today as well as for the generations to come.

As a non-profit organization dedicated to giving Holocaust survivors and witnesses the means to record their histories, we encourage educators, scholars, students, and the general public to access our archives. The collection can be used as research material for a broad range of studies, including psychology, sociology, political science, immigrant studies, genealogical studies, European history, Jewish history, and Holocaust analysis.
 

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Contact: 

Judy Janec at JudyJ@jfcs.org or 415-449-3748.

 Claims Conference
This oral history project has been supported by a grant from the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany.

 

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