"First-Hand" Holocaust

Boder/Bella Interview

I just read the interview transcript conducted by D.P. Boder with Bella Zgnilek, who is 22 years old. It seems like the interview took place not long after her liberation and migration to France, though it is unclear how much time passed.

Bella Zgnilek interview

Boder was clearly out to create an archive and to gather not just personal testimony but songs and poetry from within the work camp. He explains this importance to her and she seems to oblige him with the information (though written material he asks her for during the interview is not, in the end, gathered and included in the archive). She clearly has a message that she wants to get out, as she reveals at the end in her message, calling out to "you, my friends" and "us Jews". Throughout the rest of the interview, she sticks to a fairly detached-seeming recollection of narrative facts, without adding in how she felt about the events or people involved. I think maybe this is because of the structure and expectations of the interview. It isn't until the end, when Boder gives her freedom to say what she wants, that she does express her feelings.

I was particularly struck by how difficult it was to fully understand her narrative about what happened to her family and her mother, father, siblings and extended family. Even her narrative about where she went and what happened to her seemed a little fragmented, although it may have just come across that way though the transcript/interview form. For a project seeking to gather and archive information, the limitations are very palpable. Clearly, the questions Boder delineates at various points in the interview are meant to draw out a personal narrative, but the success of delivery and comprehensiveness depends, ultimately, on the person being interviewed and how well the interviewer and interviewee can communicate.

This brings up the question of language, which Wieviorka (The Era of the Witness) explores in her discussion of Wiesel's Night. He clearly tailors what information he presents based on his expected audience (and how he presents the information). Language/code switching seems to have further complicated the process. I got the feeling that in the interview that Bella was giving answers certainly not in her most comfortable/fluent language (and, at the end, she gives her ending remarks, where she reveals more of her feelings, in Polish, which I don't think she uses at all through the rest of the interview). Clearly, language plays a significant role in the way she testified and probably in the way she understood the interview.

The issue of silence was also something I found myself thinking about throughout the interview, especially in places where the transcript noted "Word(s) not clear" or put in "(?)". Information is clearly lost in these blanks. Additionally, both Bella and Boder trail off without finishing some thoughts, leaving parts of the narrative untold, just as Wiesel does in Night with his use of elipses...

Shoah Testimonies

So, I ended up watching all of the testimony clips on the Shoah Foundation website. There were a few specific things that people said that resonated with what I have been thinking about from the readings and then some more general things I wanted to note.

In Hy Abrahm's testimony, he talked about going to hide in the mountains with his family and, he thought, a few other families. For some reason I was very aware of the way he seemed to be referencing an unclear memory by saying "I think" (his facial expression contributed as well), which then became more concrete - and part of the narrative - by its utterance and inclusion into the story.

In Marcia Spies' account, she describes the appreciation she has come to have for the family that took her in and hid her during the war. It is in retrospect that she has come to have this view of what the family had to sacrifice and the kind of people they were/must have been. I wonder if her reflexive views on the family and the stories she chose to tell or remember about them and her experience with them are affected by her perception of their kindness.

George Gottlieb's description of he and his brother's last meeting with thier mother was intensely sad, but at the same time offered an interesting depiction of the Nazi SS Officer that I think we don't often see. The officer first kicked him when he asked to go find his mother, but then later shows a clear gesture of kindness in allowing the boys (though just 20 minutes) to go find their mother. He obviously knew or found out where she was. The SS also gave them a paper bag with good "German" bread, butter, sausage, and a pocketknife to give to their mother in offering. This is a compassionate side of the SS not often told about.

I was interested in the question of language in Romana Farrington's testimony as well as in the collection of testimonies as a whole. All of the testimony presented on this webpage was presented in English, though whether that carries through for all or even most of the Shoah Foundation's archives would warrant more research on my part. Even so, this is presupposing and catering to a certain audience. What testimony and who does this then exclude from the English-speaker's understanding of the Holocaust witness? Additionally, I wonder how much speaking in English, seemingly not the native/first language of any of the witnesses, changed how they remembered and relayed their narratives. Romana Farrington had trouble remembering the word "ax". I'm not sure what that means to her story... but it brought up the question of translation and what can be lost.

Overall I was interested in the question of the editting and selection of testimony shown on the website, a question that Wieviorka brings to the surface with her discussion of the selection of witnesses for the Eichmann trial (73). Is it based on emotional appeal? What the foundation thinks the public should hear? What the foundation thinks the public wants to hear? It made me think about why witnesses are chosen to be the representatives of all others. On the Shoah Foundation website, there were only twelve clips shown, and of these testimonies, only a few minutes each of hours of testimony were provided. Also, I wondered what brought certain stories to mind for certain witnesses. Which stories come readily to their minds? Which narratives are personally deemed most important to them and why? In the context of different interviews, do/would they tell different stories? Moreover, what do and have the foundation's video editors deemed important from the collected testimonies? Why did they choose the clips of stories that they did?