USC Shoah Foundation Featured in Book about History of Testimony

A new anthology From Testimony to Story: Video Interviews about Nazi Crimes: Perspectives and Experiences in Four Countries includes two chapters about USC Shoah Foundation, written by its regional consultants in Czech Republic and Poland.

The 200-page book is published by the Remembrance, Responsibility and Future Foundation (EVZ) and can be viewed online. It gives an overview of the history of oral history in Israel, Czech Republic, Poland and Germany as well as the educational use and impact of video interviews with Holocaust survivors and other victims of Nazi crimes.

Martin Šmok, USC Shoah Foundation Senior International Program Consultant in Czech Republic, and Monika Koszńyska, regional consultant in Poland, both contributed chapters about USC Shoah Foundation, including its history and educational programs in their respective countries.

The book is the second volume in EVZ’s series about the educational use of testimony of victims of National Socialism. The first volume (in German) includes chapters by USC Shoah Foundation Teaching Fellow Alina Bothe, and Verena Lucia Nägel and Dorothee Wein, which each include discussion of the Visual History Archive. The anthology is a comprehensive overview of the different forms of survivor testimony, such as memoirs, music and court testimony, and introduces educational concepts for historical and political education work.

In early 2016, the English-language volume 3, with contributions from the international conference “Preserving Survivors’ Memories,” will also be published.