Oral History In The Holocaust

Since 1945, many victims of the Holocaust have documented their horrific experiences. Some recorded their experiences solely to stay sane, but most survivors feared that the world would forget the atrocities of the Second World War. Since the late 1940s, thousands of different Holocaust memoirs have been published. Undoubtedly, what binds most of these authors is the fact that they have all faced severe loss, questioned the existence of God, and felt the desperate need for hope. Their awareness, understanding and judgement were also severely put to the test.

The main topic proposal for my research project will focus on Mary Karr’s The Liars’ Club events and how they are based on a true story as far as she can recall. Mary Karr’s The Liars’ Club deals with rape, alcoholism and a mother that is nervous in East Texas with list of seven husbands. The human mind’s memory is delicate and can change (Simply). A first-hand account such as a memoir gives me a chance to analyze the truth behind the stories. Eyewitness accounts are highly inaccurate and several witnesses in the same place and time can have many different accounts of the same scene (Eyewitnes).

From lies of History to reality “History will have to record that the greatest tragedy of this period of social transition was not the strident clamor of the bad people, but the appalling silence of the good people.” Martin Luther King , Jr. I have come to find out that the stories our teachers and historians tell us is different from what truly happened, so that we could feel good about ourselves and believed it had to happen and feel good that it happened. In Lies My Teacher Told Me by James Loewen, and The People History of United States by Howard Zinn, this two authors have studied and compared the history that they know and what teachers teaches students. As Leowen says, “The stories that history textbooks tell are predictable, every

History is a novel idea that has been a continuous idea throughout our time in class. We have gone over what history means to us, the students; as well as the authors and filmmakers we have studied. For me, before this class, History merely meant what we

Everyone who has learned about World War II should know about the Holocaust. The Holocaust was during the same period of World War II. “What is it called the Holocaust?” you may ask. The Holocaust originates from the Greek language and means “completely burnt offering to God.”

Historians have been debating how the spirit triumphed during the Holocaust for years. The spirit triumphed through the Holocaust through many, many distractions, nature, and the support and love of family and friends. The Nazis had killed, and enslaved so many Jewish people in concentration camps. But, the Nazis couldn’t take their spirit from them.

The sad thing about stories is that “once a story is told, it cannot be called back. Once told, it is loose in the world” (King10), that plane with no survivors cannot be taken back, the article in the news about the bus that flipped is read by thousands of people and cannot be taken back. The author of the “Truth About Stories” never says whether he thinks that not being able to take back stories is a good or bad thing, but rather he states that “you have to be careful with the stories you tell. And you have to watch out for the stories you are told” (King,10) because they will shape who you

There are many events in history but Holocaust left a permanent scar on the face of history. The event soaked in blood and tears of innocent would be unforgettable. Holocaust also known as Shoah (in Hebrew) was a genocide that took lives of millions of people from different backgrounds. Approximately 1 million Gypises were killed, 1.5 million mentally and physically handicapped people were victims of T-4 program, but Jews where the primary victims and 6 million Jews died in holocaust (Neiwyk and Nicosia). The Holocaust took place between 1933-1945.

A living corpse Do you think the holocaust could happen again? Do you think if people aren 't aware of history that it can repeat self? If people aren 't aware of what happened in the holocaust and how horrific it was, then people wouldn 't know what to do if it happened again and people wouldn 't know how to prevent it from happening again. This memoir points out the worst parts of a personal experience of Elie Wiesel, a holocaust survivor.

Survivors of the Holocaust After the war against the Nazis, there were very few survivors left. For the survivors returning to life to when it was before the war was basically impossible. They tried returning home but that was dangerous also, after the war, anti-Jewish riots broke out in a lot of polish cites. Although the survivors were able to build new homes in their adopted countries. The Jewish communities had no longer existed in much part of Europe anymore.

History books writers want to “soften” the past by rewriting the past by taking out important facts and details. No more false history. “The state of Texas voted to soften slavery roles.” (Isensee 2015). The reason why

Elie Wiesel once stated “for the dead and the living, we must bear witness”. Remembrance of historical events is vitally important for the collective narrative. If horrific events such as the Holocaust are allowed to be forgotten, then we have forgotten the significance of the event and debased the people who died. In order to keep the event in the collective narrative, as a way of creating a universal understanding of the tragedy not only for the sake of those directly involved, but also as a warning to future generations, we must as Wiesel states “bear witness”.

History does not always convey the absolute truth. It offers only one side of the story. The strong and powerful voices always drown out the sounds of the weak and beaten. The winner’s word will always be taken over the loser’s. The content that lies within the textbooks was not written by the defeated.

I have always had this odd fascination with the Holocaust. I don’t have a familial history attached to it or anything, yet I’ve still felt connected to it. My first encounter with the Holocaust was in elementary school. A Ukrainian Jew, a survivor of the Holocaust, came into my classroom and talked with the students through a translator. What I remember most clearly is when he mentioned every nationality that he met while in a concentration camp: Russians, Slovaks, Germans, Polish, the list goes on and on.

The combination of these advantages allows for the individual to give an authentic response to questions about their experiences, rather than formulate a well thought out written response. Oral history has many advantages, but as a primary source there are a few disadvantages. One of which is an individual recalling a false memory. In some cases when events took plave more than forty years ago, the individual could have trouble remembering the exact details of their experience. Another disadvantage is the recollection being only one persons point of view.