Cover Story
Not To Be Forgotten
Professor Sidney Bolkosky uses the Internet to give broad access to Holocaust survivors' oral histories.
HARRY KIRS BAUM
Staff Writer
S
idney Bolkosky believes the oral
histories of Holocaust survivors
should be seen and heard — not
just stored on shelves.
So the University of Michigan-
Dearborn history professor has taken
some of the 150 transcripts of interviews
from the oral history project he began in
1987, and placed them on a university
Web page for the world to see.
At present, the Web site
http://holocaustumd.umich.edui
shoWs 13 audiotaped interviews, each
transcribed with every pause and sob.
Maps, photos and video-portraits
accompany each interview to give
viewers a historical backdrop.
Bolkosky long has been involved in
Holocaust education, using the inter-
views as part of "Life Unworthy of
Life," a three-hour course he helped
develop that is taught in high schools
across Michigan.
In 1999, with no fanfare, four inter-
views were placed on the Web for a
global audience. The site has drawn
70,000 clicks from authors, researchers
and students from all over the world.
Bolkosky's project, called "Voice-
Vision: Holocaust Survivor Oral
Histories," is supported by the univer-
sity, individual donors and a grant
from the Max M. Fisher Jewish
Community Foundation. When he
received the Fisher grant a few years
ago, he said the committee suggested
he put the interviews on the Internet.
"There's nothing like the Web to
bring a historical event home like
this," he said. "When a 15-year-old
kid hears a woman say she was 15
years old when she got off the train in
Auschwitz, there's a connection."
Ruth Muschkies Webber of West
Bloomfield was interviewed by
Bolkosky in 1987, and her story is the
latest to make it on the Web.
Her experiences of living in the chil-
dren's ward of Auschwitz were difficult to
retell, and she appreciates that her story
will reach more people on the Web.
"It's getting more difficult for me,"
she said. "When I tell it, I also experi-
ence, to'a point, what I went
through."
The Process
Bolkosky has interviewed 180 survivors
— mostly from the Detroit area — for
this project since
he began
in 1981..
"When I first started interviewing
survivors, I would have nightmares that
my two kids were on the trains," he
said. "I'd wake up and check on them."
Now, he just feels sad about the sur-
vivors and what they endured.
"I try very hard to keep a personal
distance from them during the inter-
view, but an hour later, I'll be listening
to the tapes, and that's when the emo-
tions come back," he said.
Over the years, Bolkosky has devel-
oped a technique for obtaining what he
considers comprehensive oral histories.
The hallmark is that he conducts an
extensive first interview, always done
with a tape recorder, usually in the
survivor's home. This interview usually
lasts about nine hours, but some have
gone as long as 20 hours. This audio
interview delves into every
aspect of a survivor's
life, starting from
daily life before
the war.
"They'll
say things in
their home
that they
won't say in
the studio,"
he said.
"One of the
questions I
ask is what
was a Friday night like? Sometimes,
you can feel the tape get warm. One
person said, Ah, Shabbos, let me tell
you about Shabbos ...'"
Armed with research gleaned at the
first interview, a two- to three-hour
follow-up video interview is scheduled
about three weeks later in the universi-
ty's Mardigian Library studio, "where I
can direct them a little bit better,"
Bolkosky.said.
•
The verbatim audiotape transcripts
--- which include every emotional_
nuance — are proofread three times.
Barbara Kriigel, Mardigian Library's
associate director for circulation,
audiovisual and technical services, said
the main challenge is accuracy.
"Sometimes, you can only listen to
these interviews for so long before you
can't work on them anymore," Kriigel
said. "Some of them are more
emotional than others, even
though we're only looking for
typos and punctuation."
She's worked on the
project since 1993 with
Beth Taylor, the library's
head of technical services.
"The first summer, we
worked on this I had
nightmares," Taylor said.
Jamie Wraight joined the
staff as curator in May 2001.
He also proofreads the tran-
scripts, which then are sent to
the bindery, catalogued and
uploaded to the Web.