World
Never Forget!
Voice Vision Timeline
Local Holocaust survivor archive marks 25th year.
Photo by Don Cohen
Don Cohen
Special to the Jewish News
W
hile the number of Holocaust
survivors declines each year,
it seems there are more and
more books, movies and memorials to
keep their stories alive. But among them
all, there is nothing like the Voice/Vision
Holocaust Survivor Oral History Archive at
the University of Michigan-Dearborn.
The Archive will celebrate its 25th anni-
versary with a community program 2 p.m.
Sunday, Sept. 9, at the Henry Ford Estate
on the UM-D campus.
What makes the Archive unique is its
high standards of scholarship as well as its
common touch that makes its tapes, video
and transcripts available on the Internet,
at UM-D's Mardigian Library and through
inter-library loan. Access to larger col-
lections like those at Yale University and
through the Steven Spielberg Foundation
require users to come to them but Voice/
Vision is only an Internet connection away
anywhere in the world. The collection
contains more than 300 audio and video
interviews and there are 72 interview
transcripts online, divided by theme, with
synopses of 21 additional interviews that
have yet to be posted.
An example of how important that can
be will be shared by Victoria Monacelli at
the anniversary celebration. Monacelli's
eighth-grade students at Warren G.
Harding Middle School, an inner city
public school in Philadelphia, located
the Voice/Vision Web site while doing
research on the Holocaust. She contacted
Voice/Vision historian and curator Dr.
Jamie Wraight for permission to use the
oral histories, which was speedily granted.
Her students' 15-minute podcast, which
includes actual audio from the interviews,
is now available online.
While working with her students on
the project she wrote to Wraight, "I really
haven't ever seen anything like it before
... I think they have spent so much time
listening to and analyzing what your sur-
vivors have said that they feel as though
they know them ... So know that, for right
now, your survivors, some of whom I am
sure are deceased, are alive and well and
affecting the lives of numerous young peo-
ple in Philadelphia. Talk about posterity."
The oral history project began in August
1981 when Professor Sidney Bolkosky,
now the William E. Stirton Professor in the
Social Sciences and Professor of History at
UM-Dearborn, was asked by the Holocaust
Memorial Center, then in West Bloomfield,
to begin the project. A year later, the proj-
ect was moved to UM-Dearborn where
Bolkosky teaches to make it more accessi-
ble to scholars and students, an issue that
has become a trademark of the project.
The collection is housed at the Mardigian
Library and the project has a small office
on the fourth floor.
Bolkosky credits the university with
the program's success and longevity, not-
ing that the current chancellor, Dr. Daniel
Little, has helped it thrive even as the uni-
versity faces financial challenges given the
state's economy.
"From the start, the University enthu-
siastically supported the undertaking,
providing studio time, materials and a
dedicated staff:' Bolkosky says.
A three-year grant from the Max M.
Fisher Foundation helped get the inter-
views on the Internet in 1997, and recent
support has come from the Conference on
Jewish Material Claims Against Germany.
Individual contributions have been vital,
and Voice/Vision hopes to locate funds to
intensify community outreach, provide
teacher-training workshops and promote
an online curriculum using the interviews.
The more than 300 audio interviews
of Holocaust survivors in Southeast
Michigan in the collection, all conducted
by Bolkosky, range in length from 1 1/2 to
19 hours. The time-consuming process
of transcribing the interviews began in
1994 and continues with a dozen currently
being worked on. Today as then, the initial
rough drafts of the transcripts are made
by Suzanne Hicks, a non-Jewish volunteer
who transcribes the audiotapes and sends
them back by e-mail for staff and stu-
dents to polish into the finished product.
Interestingly, Bolkosky and Wraight have
never met her and are pleased she'll travel
from Arkansas for the Sept. 9 celebration.
Dr. Wraight, whose dissertation in
Modern German History analyzed survi-
vor accounts, has been with the project for
seven years, full-time since 2002.
He says he gets calls from all over the
world since Voice/Vision exemplifies the
best practices in oral history projects, par-
ticularly for the Holocaust.
"I've never worked with more dedicated
people he says of colleagues and others
Sidney Bolkosky, Dr. Jamie Wraight and
librarian Barbara Kriigel look at a map
of Poland in the Voice/Vision office at
U-M Dearborn's Mardigian Library.
who've worked on the project. "The students
who take it on take it on as a job. After a
little time it becomes much more to them:'
Barbara Kriigel a librarian at the
Mardigian Library, calls it a "privilege" to
be involved with the project. "Other jobs
came up that might interest me and be
closer to my home [in Oxford]. But this is
the project that keeps me here she says.
Like Wraight, she is not Jewish but has
embraced the program in a personal way.
"The oral histories connect you so much
more to the history and the event. People
tell you exactly how they felt and what it
meant to them. It gives you much more of
an emotional connection:' she says.
Ayah Mahfouz, a student researcher from
Dearborn has been working with Voice/
Vision for several months. She copyedits
interviews and researches terms and loca-
tions, sometimes struggling with the accents
while looking for important references.
"I'm researching and researching,"
Mahfouz says smiling, covered head to toe
by a hijab. "There are high profile survivor
stories that everyone knows about but
some of these are under the radar and it's
important to make them known."
The Voice/Vision Holocaust Survivor
Oral History 25-Year Anniversary
will be 2-4 p.m., Sunday, Sept. 9,
at the Henry Ford Estate, 4901
Evergreen, Dearborn
The celebration will feature
talks by Victoria Monacelli, Hank
Greenspan and Agi Rubin, and
music from the Phoenix Quartet.
Hors d'oeuvres will be served. For
reservations: (313) 593-5236 or via
library-evebt-rsvp@umd.umich.edu .
August 1981: First interview(s) with
Salvatore and Lily Katan for the
Holocaust Memorial Center, then
in West Bloomfield, conducted by
Prof. Sidney Bolkosky.
1982: UM-Dearborn assumes
responsibility for the Holocaust
Oral History Project and provides
audio and video services.
1982-1994: Two-three interviews
per month are completed and sent
to the archives at Yale University
and the U.S. Holocaust Memorial
Museum.
Fall 1992: Mardigan Library staff at
UM-Dearborn becomes involved.
June 1993: First interview tapes
transcribed.
July 1994: Three interviews (Erna
Gorman, Abraham Pasternak,
Alfred Lessing) are made avail-
able worldwide. Reception offi-
cially introduces the Voice/Vision
Archive to the community.
March 1995: Max M. Fisher Jewish
Community Foundation provides
$30,000 grant over three years to
purchase equipment.
1997: Web site goes online.
2000: Jamie Wraight is hired as
half-time curator.
2001: Distance Learning program
"History of the Holocaust" devel-
oped.
January 2002: UM-D provost and
chancellor support full-time posi-
tion for project curator.
January 2005: Voice/Vision part-
ners with PBS to screen documen-
tary film, Auschwitz: Inside the
Nazi State.
April 2005: Voice/Vision begins
active involvement with
annual community Holocaust
and Armenian Genocide
Commemoration.
September 2005: Exhibit - "Children
of the Holocaust: Stories from the
Voice/Vision Archives."
November 2005: Archive collabo-
rates with the Gelman Education
Foundation to support the film
The Power of Good.
January 2006: Voice/Vision Archive
awarded 2 year, $25,000 grant
from the Conference on Jewish
Material Claims.
August 2007: 103 interviews tran-
scribed, cataloged and available to
researchers. More than 70 inter-
views available online.
September 6 • 2007
25