Holocaust Survivor Testimony over Time

Join us at the Melbourne Holocaust Museum on 22 February as Dr Sharon Kangisser Cohen from Yad Vashem explores the development of Holocaust survivor testimony over time.

This lecture will trace the development of Holocaust survivor testimony collections over time. It will examine the survivors’ motivations and inhibitions in retelling their stories and the use and challenges of these oral sources in the writing of history, education and commemoration.

This talk will outline the development of Holocaust survivor testimony over the past seven decades. During the war itself, many Jews dedicated themselves to documenting their own experience and that of others. Since the close of World War II survivors of the Holocaust have given testimony to individuals and organizations. Many of early testimonies after the war were incorporated in trial proceedings and commission reports; other testimonies were preserved in archives.

Dr Sharon Kangisser Cohen is Editor-in-Chief of Yad Vashem Studies and the Director of the Eli and Diana Zborowski Centre for the Study of the Aftermath of the Holocaust at the International Institute for Holocaust Research at Yad Vashem.