Holocaust Survivor Oral Histories

Dr. Uta Larkey, Associate Professor of Modern Languages, taught a class from 2004 to 2013 titled, Oral Histories of Holocaust Survivors.  The class was a community-based learning experience in which students interviewed Holocaust Survivors and then retold the survivors' stories.  As Uta says in the class syllabus, "You are the last generation to personally know a Holocaust Survivor.  This privilege is connected to the responsibility of carrying memory into the future. . . . You will carry and retell the survivors' stories to others.  This is one of the most meaningful ways to pay tribute to the legacy of the Holocaust to 'never forget.'"

For 10 years, groups of students interviewed Baltimore-area Holocaust survivors in three sessions.  The sessions followed the same format: life before World War II; experiences during the war years; and liberation and its aftermath, coming to the United States, and life today.  Dr. Steve Salzberg, who interviewed many Holocaust survivors for the Shoah Foundation, conducted the interviewing workshops for students in the course.The students then worked with storyteller, Jennifer Zunikoff, to learn techniques for retelling the survivors' stories.  Students then went into the Baltimore community to tell the survivors' stories. 

There are some more recent interviews (2015)  that are not part of the original class.  These were conducted by interested students as a special assignment and occurred in only one interview session with the Holocaust survivor.

This website is the product of the students' work.  The survivors represented here have given permission for their stories to be told.  While the filming and sound are not professionally done, the connection between the students and the survivors is genuine and unmatched.  Many of these survivors have been interviewed throughout their lives, but not by people two generations apart and in the comfort of their own homes. 

Over the past 10 years, Goucher College students interviewed over 35 Holocaust Survivors.  A number of them have given their permission to have their interviews available to the world.  For those whom we have not received permission, only their biographies are available online.  In order to listen to their interviews you must do so in person in the Goucher College Library Archives & Special Collections.  To make an appointment please email archives@goucher.edu or call (410) 337-6075.

Due to the length of the interviews, many of them have been divided into multiple parts.  We are in the process of creating transcriptions for each interview.

Some of the interviews could not be recovered from the original media that students used to record.  These are marked as such in each instance.  The more recent interviews (2015) were conducted in only one session.

If you would like to support this project, please consider making a donation!

To do so, you can send a check to the library, or donate online here-- https://www.goucher.edu/gift.html  -- and select other designation, with a note that the gift is to benefit the Library Oral History Project.