Academics hope emphasis on survivors' testimonies will change the way in which war history is studied
The arrival in Britain of an archive of tens of thousands of Holocaust testimonies will give much needed historical weight to the experiences of survivors, according to a leading scholar.
David Cesarani, of the Holocaust Research Centre at the University of London, believes that the US video archive, set up 18 years ago by Steven Spielberg, will help to rebalance a picture that has been dominated by the study of the perpetrators of the atrocities of the second world war.
The extraordinary catalogue of personal testimony, collected by the Shoah Foundation Institute since the film director made Schindler's List in 1993, is housed at the University of Southern California, but on Friday it was formally shared with academics and students at the research centre at Royal Holloway to mark Holocaust Memorial Day. The archive footage, which can be viewed by members of the public by appointment, chiefly features the memories of Jewish survivors, but some of the 52,000 videos also tell of the experiences of other persecuted groups, such as homosexuals and Jehovah's Witnesses, as well of those of the liberating troops.
Cesarani believes the archive facility will set British historical research in the right context. "It is going to have a huge impact," he said. "This is an authentic resource for British researchers and historians which will give them access to the experiences of people who have never written anything down. Too much of the history of the Holocaust has been about the perpetrators. The survivors, with a few exceptions, have tended to disappear from the scene."
Growing academic appreciation of the value of oral testimony will mean that the archive is well used, he believes. "Historians now understand that you don't go to an archive like this to find out exactly what happened on a given day. It is about recovering the perceptions of the victims at the time, and accepting there are going to be mistakes and errors," added Cesarani.
His views are echoed by Stephen D. Smith, executive director of the USC Shoah Foundation Institute in California. Smith and his brother James M. Smith, founded the UK Holocaust Centre in Nottinghamshire and the British-based Aegis Trust. "It's a mistake to think of it as a historical archive. It contains historical data, but it's a look at how society can unravel and unfold," Stephen Smith said. "This is a voice of a conscience of our age. It's there to help guide us and has a social value of conscience which I really hope can make a difference, and if it doesn't, we'll come to rue the day, but it won't be because the survivors didn't warn us."
Smith first came face to face with the truth of the Holocaust in 1991 at Yad Vashem, Israel's Holocaust Museum. "I started wondering why it was that British society hadn't dealt with that part of history." He became involved with the USC Shoah Foundation Institute because of his Holocaust studies and research into survivor testimony, which he sees as "the last word of defiance". He said: "The disempowered are now empowered through their own voices – but how prepared are we to listen?"
Smith hopes that non-specialists will also visit the archive. The USC Shoah Foundation Institute is broadening its archive to incorporate testimony from survivors of other genocides. It is collecting testimony in Rwanda, where the Aegis Trust set up the Kigali Memorial Centre in 2004. This year Rwandan and Armenian testimony should be added to the visual history archive.
Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/jan/28/holocaust-video-archive-steven-spielberg
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