Oral Testimonies
The value of the tens of thousands
of oral testimonies given by survivors
for locating information about individuals is controversial. This
author has
consulted two persons in the Jewish genealogical community who have
used
them extensively. One stated that oral testimonies usually include
little
information about individuals. Their purpose was to describe the
testifier's
personal experiences during the Holocaust. Close family members may be
described as "my uncle Sol" or "my sister" without specifically
identifying the
individual. Yet the other person stated they often contain names of
family
members as well as members of the community. The latter party also
commented that oral testimonies are an excellent source of first-person
accounts of the events that transpired in a particular town.
Members of the Jewish genealogical community are mounting a
campaign to have interviewers encourage survivors to name individuals
and
their relationships to each other. Often, the survivor's memory is the
only
documentation of individuals murdered in the Holocaust, especially
children,
and failure to document who these people were ensures that no record
will
remain that they ever existed.
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