Education with Testimonies FROM TESTIMONY TO STORY Video Interviews about Nazi Crimes. Perspectives and Experiences in Four Countries edited by Dagi Knellessen and Ralf Possekel The stories of Holocaust survivors and others who were persecuted by the Nazis are an invaluable resource for understanding what effect persecution had on victims and how they dealt with this experience over time. In recent decades, researchers in many countries began videotaping contemporary witnesses as they told their stories, allowing their voices to be heard, when personal encounters are no longer possible. In the interviews, biographical narratives and personal memories are used to document the mass crimes committed by the Nazis and also to illuminate how survivors processed these memories in their lifetime. This multi-faceted historical source poses special challenges to educational work. This volume reflects international developments, trends and debates about the videotaped contemporary witness interviews and their digital archives. Different interview collections and educational approaches from Israel, the Czech Republic, Poland and Germany are presented. These essays document the exchange that took place between education experts from these four countries as part of the series Entdecken und Verstehen. Bildungs- arbeit mit Zeugnissen von Opfern des Nationalsozialismus (“Discovering and Understanding: Educational Work with Testimonials from Victims of National Socialism”) that was initiated and organized by the Foundation EVZ in 2010 and 2011. Education with Testimonies, Vol. 2 FROM TeSTIMONY TO STORY Video Interviews about Nazi Crimes Perspectives and Experiences in Four Countries edited by Dagi Knellessen und Ralf Possekel on behalf of Stiftung „Erinnerung, Verantwortung und Zukunft” (EVZ) Published by Dagi Knellessen and Ralf Possekel on behalf of Stiftung „Erinnerung, Verantwortung und Zukunft” (EVZ) Editorial: Verena Haug Coordination: Ulrike Rothe Copy Editing: Miriamne Fields Translation: Brady Clough, Tristan Korecki, Roderick Miller, Noah Benninga Design and Layout: ruf.gestalten (Hedwig Ruf) Photo credits, cover: Dr. David P. Boder with Armour wire recorder, Europe, 1946 (IIT Archives, Chicago) Project visit during a press trip of the Foundation “EVZ“ through the Ukraine in 2012 Photo: Dietrich Wolf Fenner ISBN: 978-3-9813377-4-7 (online version) ISBN: 978-3-9813377-5-4 (printed version) © Stiftung „Erinnerung, Verantwortung und Zukunft” (EVZ), Berlin 2015 All rights reserved. The work and its parts are protected by copyright. Any use in other than legally authorized cases requires the written approval of the Foundation EVZ. This publication does not reflect the opinions of the Foundation EVZ. The authors bear the responsibility for statements contained herein. LIST OF CONTENT 9 Günter Saathoff Opening Remarks 13 Dagi Knellessen and Ralf Possekel Introduction CHAPTER 1 • ISRAEL 27 Hanna Yablonka The Reception of Holocaust Testimony in Israel 47 Aya Ben-Naftali Between Memory and Commemoration Holocaust Survivors’ Testimonies as an Educational Theme at the Eichmann Trial Exhibition 54 Keren Goldfrad Voices of Child Survivors A Multidisciplinary Approach to Children’s Holocaust Testimonies CHAPTER 2 • POLAND 65 Piotr Filipkowski Oral History in Poland: Histories, Current Developments, Future Perspectives 75 Mirosław Skrzypczyk ‘With these reminiscences, I will be reminisced, too...’: The Oral History of Szczekociny. An Educational and Artistic Project 80 Monika Koszynska Witness Accounts used in Teaching History in Poland with a Special Focus on the Teacher Training Program of the USC Shoah Foundation FROM TESTIMONY TO StORY 5 84 Anna Wójtowicz “I talk to anyone who is willing to listen…” A Practical Example of How to Use Videotaped Testimonies in Educational Work at the State Museum of Majdanek 89 Anna Klimowicz Historical Educational Projects for Pupils: “This cannot be forgotten. Encounters with former Ravensbrück inmates” CHAPTER 3 • CZECH REPUBLIC 97 Oldrich Tuma The Significance and Influence of Oral History in the Context of Czech Contemporary Historiography 103 Pavla Hermina Neuner and Julie Jenšovská The Oral History Collection of the Jewish Museum in Prague 111 Julie Svatonová Use of Interviews with Witnesses to the Porajmos, at the Museum of Roma Culture 116 Pavel Voves and Petr Koura Nazi Persecution of Populations in the Czech Lands A Multimedia Teaching Aid with Testimonies 122 Martin Šmok 52,000 interviews: Use of the USC Shoah Foundation Archive in Secondary Education 129 Magdalena Benešová Memory of Nations in Schools Post Bellum’s Educational Projects 138 Jana Horáková and Kamila Poláková Interviews from the Extensive Collection of the Silesian Museum in the Exhibition “The Time of Ruin and Hope” 142 Jaroslav Pinkas Large and Small Tales of Modern History A Critical and Reflective Interview Project on the Reception of Family Remembrance 149 Tereza Vávrová Stories of Injustice From the Place Where We Live 6 FROM TESTIMONY TO StORY CHAPTER 4 • GERMANY 157 Alexander von Plato Oral History and Biographical Research as “Behavioral and Experiential History.” A Sketch of the Development in Germany 166 Cord Pagenstecher Learning with Interviews The Online Archive “Forced Labor 1939–1945” in Classroom and Extracurricular Education 173 Verena Lucia Nägel and Dorothee Wein Witnesses of the Shoah The Visual History Archive of the Shoah Foundation in School Education 180 Constanze Jaiser Memory in Motion A Pedagogical Approach to Working with Video Testimonies of Shoah Survivors COMMENT 191 Monique Eckmann and Werner Dreier Contemporary Witnesses as an Educational Resource: Transparency, Controversy and Reflexivity 200 INDEX OF AUTHORS FROM TESTIMONY TO StORY 7 8 FROM TESTIMONY TO StORY Opening ReMARKS One of the tasks of the Foundation Remembrance, Responsibility and Future (Stiftung „Erinnerung, Verantwortung und Zukunft”, EVZ) is to keep alive the memory of National Socialist injustice for future generations. Our project funding is applied to our commitment to permanently embed the history of Nazi forced labor in the cultural memory of Germans and Europeans. As part of this effort, since 2009 the international traveling exhibition “Forced La- bor: Germans, Forced Laborers and the War” (Zwangsarbeit. Die Deutschen, die Zwangsarbeiter und der Krieg) has been presented in Berlin, Moscow, War- saw, Prague, Dortmund, Hamburg, and will continue on to Austria in 2016. This aim is also supported by the program “Forced Labor and Forgotten Victims: Remembering Nazi Injustice” (Zwangsarbeit und vergessene Opfer. Erinnern an nationalsozialistisches Unrecht). In addition, the Foundation has funded more than 580 living history audio and video interviews of survi- vors in 26 countries. Developed conceptually by the Freie Universität Berlin in cooperation with the German Historical Museum (Deutsches Historisches Museum), they are available worldwide online through the digital archive “Forced Labor 1939–1945” (Zwangsarbeit 1939–1945). Through current proj- ect funding in Germany, the Czech Republic and Russia, the Foundation is making this archive available internationally by developing educational materials aimed especially at young people. We have also supported a more comprehensive approach to the scientific and, importantly, educational interaction with personal accounts of Nazi victims. Many victims of National Socialism recorded their own experiences during the Nazi era, after the war and also in recent decades. These testimonials constitute a huge collection of personal accounts which give expression to the strong desire of individuals to document these crimes and prevent them from being forgotten. They create a subjective legacy while often serving as a “warning” to future generations. Because of its legal mandate, the Foun- dation EVZ is especially committed to finding ways to make this vast and FROM TESTIMONY TO StORY 9 valuable collection of very different sources of subjective memory useful to historical and political education. It is not, however, the Foundation’s aim to promote an over-identification with former victims, nor to gloss over the crimes and their specific contexts. It strives instead to complement and broaden perspectives in the reappraisal of Nazi injustice. Because so many victims were denied attention and recognition for decades throughout the world – especially in Germany – the Foundation advocates preserving the victims’ many different voices and their personal perspectives the Nazi era permanently in the current cultural memory of Germany and Europe. It has been a special academic and pedagogical challenge to avoid having the victims’ perspectives glorified and exaggerated: The survivors’ reports cannot claim to offer a “better” explanation than can be provided by aca- demic research based on other sources on National Socialism, nor to posit explanations or convey absolute truths. Their subjective authenticity (and often the biographical transformation of narratives over the decades) has to be expanded upon and contextualized through other perspectives. The per- sonal testimonials can and should provide an impetus for further questions about social contexts, scopes of action, opportunities for resistance and in- dividual responsibility. So many decades since the time of persecution, such personal testimonials also reflect how social conditions in each country af- fected the ways in which these events were remembered or repressed. They reveal whether society encouraged (or discouraged) bearing witness, and