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.