Holocaust Legacies and Oral History in the Classroom

Abstract

Survivor oral histories have helped determine research questions in Holocaust studies and propelled the field’s largest archival efforts. With those storytellers now passing at an ever-quickening pace, however, some oral historians are turning to descendants as the faces of memory. These researchers work with descendants to individualize the enormity of Holocaust history in classrooms and for wider audiences. Historians recognize that succeeding generations are not eyewitnesses to the Holocaust, though they can give voice to the lived legacies of genocide. I seek to bring these experiences into my teaching in a way that also produces indelible sources for future research. To this end, I recently began teaching a course called “Holocaust Legacies and Oral History.” Students in this class each conduct a recorded interview with a descendant of survivors. Students and professor work as a team to define the historical purposes of our interviews, draft questions, and prepare. This article the results of this class in terms of pedagogies, successes, areas for improvement, and connections created between classroom and community. The methods employed in this class are affordable and usable at virtually any interested institution.

Keywords

• oral history
• pedagogy
• holocaust legacies