tel es

as 77.4 c...

"101 w

MASSIVE ROMAN ASSAM.
ON BOTAR REPULSED

c)

The Sounds

Of

Silent

Patient listening encouraged
Holocaust survivors to
reveal their deeper stories.

'50s, Greenspan listened to cousins
who
had been in concentration camps.
Staff Writer
His serious interest in speaking to sur-
he stories told and retold by vivors began in college during the
'60s.
Holocaust survivors tell lit-
"When I began interviewing sur-
tle of the experience that
vivors
in the 1970s, I was amazed to
the survivors endured. All
discover
that they had talked with so
stories are unrepresentative, and the
few other people — aside from other
story form itself is inadequate, said
survivors and their own families —
Leon, a survivor interviewed in On
about their experiences.
Listening to Holocaust Survivors;
"In those days there were
Recounting and Life
almost none of the oral his-
History, a book by Dr.
tory and testimony projects
Henry Greenspan.
that we have now. So I
Leon called his past
began to feel responsible for
"a landscape of death,"
what I was hearing."
where not only stories,
For the three decades after
but sound itself was out
the Shoah, Greenberg said
of place.
few people listened to sur-
Greenspan, a clinical
vivors. Now things have
psychologist and play-
changed.
wright at the University
"I learned how important
of Michigan, chose to
we
are to survivors —
interview seven Detroit-
meaning,
how important we
area Holocaust sur-
Henry Greensp an
are as listeners." he said.
vivors, including Leon,
"The hope of finding inter-
over a 20-year period.
ested, responsive listeners was a dream
Rather than recording a one-time tes-
some survivors dreamed while still in
timony, Greenspan was interested in
Auschwitz.
For the most part, the real-
their recounting of insights and mem-
ity
was
a
disappointment.
ories as a deepening conversation.
"One of the things my book tries to
"One of the advantages of inter-
do is to teach us to listen more deeply
viewing people several times, over
than we usually do; to hear, not only
many years, is that it becomes much
what survivors directly say, but what
more obvious how testimony can
they can only suggest, hint at, point
develop and deepen within sustained
toward," he said.
listening and conversation," said
Interviewing the same people over
Greenspan. "How easy it is to think
time
shows a perspective different
we follow survivors' recounting but
than in other studies.
not actually do so. What they can tell
After setting an analytical stage of
us is only the 'tip of the nightmarish
the book's concepts and contexts, the
iceberg.' Very typically, we confuse
seven survivors — as well as their
this partial story for the 'whole story.'"
themes — are introduced. The sur-
Growing up in New York in the

HARRY KI RS BAU M

T

•Fascinating

•Factual

•Entirely Authentic

TRADITION! TRADITION;
Call Alicia R. Nelson

(248) 557-0109

7-4

ACCENTS
IN NEEDLEPOINT

Contemporary
Designs

626-3042

IN THE ORCHARD MALL
WEST BLOOMFIELD

"On
Listening to
Holocaust
Survivors"
by Henry
Greenspan.

a

vivors' backgrounds are eventually
introduced, as a subtext to what they
went through and the different ways
they handled their experiences.
Self-definition is a large part of
Leon's theme:
"They took away your name. They
took away all other means of identify-
ing yourself with reference to others
— you are all reduced to gray
anonymity — head shaved, striped
uniform, defined as subhuman.
"So whatever you carry, you carry
with you. There is one area they can-
not enter: whatever privacy you can
maintain within your mind. That's the
one sanctuary. And that sanctuary is
who I am, what I stand for, what's
dear to me, what I despise."
Not your usual Holocaust story.
Greenberg wants readers of his
book to become able to listen with
greater sensitivity and understanding.
"Even the ways we usually distin-
guish between life and death, speech
and silence, fantasy and reality, are put
into question when we listen deeply to
survivors.
"The question is: Are we going to
cherish better whatever remains —
because now we know how fragile, per-
haps how precious, it actually is?" ❑

Henry Greenspan will talk at
8 p.m. Wednesday, Nov. 4, at the
Kahn Jewish Community Center
in West Bloomfield in a pre-event
of the 47th annual Jewish Book
Fair. Children of Holocaust
Survivors in Michigan (CHAIM)
and Hidden Children/Holocaust
Education Coalition are sponsor-
ing his appearance.