Online Center Database Gives Public Access to Survivor and Scholarly Voices

Holocaust survivor Anny Lerman during her pre-Pandemic interview with Center affiliate Prof. C. Patti

The Center for Judaic, Holocaust, and Peace Studies has recently launched online collection of testimonies and/or presentations by survivors of twentieth-century genocides as well as scholars in the fields of the Holocaust and twentieth-century European-Jewish history who were part of past Center programs in the U.S. and abroad. The growing collection encompasses some of the most prominent voices in these fields, including Prof. Dan Michman, the head of the International Institute for Holocaust Research at Yad Vashem, Jerusalem, and Prof. emeritus Christopher R. Browning of Tacoma, WA. The testimony collection includes interviews conducted by Center-affiliated faculty members as well as recordings of Center-organized presentations, ranging from Eugenie Mukeshimana, who – eight-month pregnant – survived the Rwanda genocide hiding in the home of a Hutu genocidaire, to Anita Lasker Wallfisch, one of the last survivors of the Women’s Orchestra at Auschwitz, and Anny Lerman, who managed to escape Nazi Vienna with her family. 
The collection is freely accessible and intended for current and future students and faculty, teachers, researchers, the broader public and supporters in the state, region, country, and abroad. The ongoing pandemic that has already claimed the lives of so many survivors only demonstrates the urgency to preserve their testimonies and make it available in an easily-accessible manner that does not endanger anyone’s health. To see the collection, go to: https://holocaust.appstate.edu/library/center-lectures-and-testimonies