Jewish survivors of the Holocaust

Long description:

Recordings in this collection can be played by anyone.

These recordings are powerful personal accounts of the Holocaust from Jewish survivors living in Britain. The interviews were selected from a much larger oral history project, the Living Memory of the Jewish Community, which recorded testimony between 1988-2000. The project was developed with the specialist advice of leading Jewish historians and complements a number of collections held by the Sound Archive on Jewish life in Britain.

During the 1930s and 1940s, the German Nazis and their collaborators murdered six million Jews. Hitler’s intention was to destroy all Jewish communities, and to build a ‘master race’ of Aryans. Many other ‘non-aryans’ were persecuted including Romanies, homosexuals, and the disabled, as well as those who were politically opposed to the Nazis. This terrible moment in history is now known as the Holocaust. It remains one of the most horrific examples in recent European history of indifference, inhumanity, prejudice and genocide.

The testimonies on this site are drawn from a major oral history programme – The Living Memory of the Jewish Community – which between 1987 and 2000 gathered 186 audio life story interviews with Jewish survivors of the Holocaust and their children. It was initiated by National Life Stories based in the BL’s oral history section and funded by a number of organisations including the Harold Hyam Wingate Foundation, the John S Cohen Foundation and the Porjes Charitable Trust. A large number of volunteer interviewers, led by Jennifer Wingate and Bill Williams, were recruited and trained, and recordings were made with a wide range of survivors from many parts of Nazi-occupied Europe, with pre-war refugees (such as Kindertransport child migrants) and a smaller number of children of survivors.

The testimonies available for online access via ASR have been chosen for their representativeness but also because they are amongst the most detailed, engaging and moving of the interviews recorded. Some also feature in an online educational resource – Voices of the Holocaust - available through the BL Learning website at http://www.bl.uk/learning/histcitizen/voices/holocaust.html. Other Holocaust oral history interviews are available at the BL, collected through collaborative projects or deposited by other organisations and projects - details about these can be found here: Jewish experience in Britain and Holocaust testimonies.

All recordings on this site are governed by licence agreements.