Overview
"Over the last several decades, video testimony with aging Holocaust survivors has brought these witnesses into the limelight. Yet the success of these projects has made it seem that little survivor testimony took place in earlier years. In truth, thousands of survivors began to recount their experience at the earliest opportunity. This book provides the first full-length case study of early postwar Holocaust testimony, focusing on David Boder's 1946 displaced persons interview project. In July 1946, Boder, a psychologist, traveled to Europe to interview victims of the Holocaust who were in the Displaced Persons (DP) camps and what he called ""shelter houses."" During his nine weeks in Europe, Boder carried out approximately 130 interviews in nine languages and recorded them on a wire recorder. Likely the earliest audio recorded testimony of Holocaust survivors, the interviews are valuable today for the spoken word (that of the DP narrators and of Boder himself) and also for the song sessions and religious services that Boder recorded. Eighty sessions were eventually transcribed into English, most of which were included in a self-published manuscript. Alan Rosen sets Boder's project in the context of the postwar response to displaced persons, sketches the dramatic background of his previous life and work, chronicles in detail the evolving process of interviewing both Jewish and non-Jewish DPs, and examines from several angles the implications for the history of Holocaust testimony.Such early postwar testimony, Rosen avers, deserves to be taken on its own terms rather than to be enfolded into earlier or later schemas of testimony. Moreover, Boder's efforts and the support he was given for them demonstrate that American postwar response to the Holocaust was not universally indifferent but rather often engaged, concerned, and resourceful."
Full Product Details
Author: Alan Rosen (Lecturer in Holocaust Literature, Lecturer in Holocaust Literature, International School for Holocaust Studies, Yad Vashem, Jerusalem, Israel)
Publisher: Oxford University Press Inc
Imprint: Oxford University Press Inc
Dimensions:
Width: 15.70cm
, Height: 1.50cm
, Length: 23.40cm
Weight: 0.454kg
ISBN: 9780199945078
ISBN 10: 0199945071
Pages: 336
Publication Date: 31 January 2013
Audience:
College/higher education
,
Postgraduate, Research & Scholarly
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active
Availability: To order
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Reviews
Alan Rosen's The Wonder of Their Voices is the first study to give sustained credit to [David Boder] and his mission in the ruins of postwar Europe...The book is an elegantly written, measured, and impressive addition to scholarship about early postwar documentation of the Holocaust, to the field of DP studies, to debates about testimony and the integrity of voice, and to knowledge about the empathy for the survivors in the postwar culture and scholarship in the United States...The Wonder of Their Voices is destined to become the definitive account of Boder's interview project. Alan Rosen revives the dormant conversation about the contribution of sound and spoken-word testimonies to the history of Holocaust testimony. --Yad Vashem Studies The Wonder of Their Voices is a beautifully written, thought-provoking account of the interview project. It will be relevant both to courses on oral history and also to courses dedicated to Holocaust testimony. --The Year's Work in Critical & Cultural Theory Nothing seems more important and meaningful to survivors than to share their experiences. In this volume, the reader will find memories that will enrich his or her understanding of an era filled with pain and anguish. --Elie Wiesel, Nobel Peace Prize-winning author of Night As the great ethnographer S. An-ski restored the lost lore of the East European shtetl, and as the martyred historian Emanuel Ringelblum documented the life and death of the Warsaw ghetto, David Boder rescued the living voices of the witnesses to the Holocaust. Thanks to his unique position as an insider-outsider, as an American in Paris, he alone understood how to capture their story before it was stifled or went stale. Through his meticulously told story, Alan Rosen has secured a permanent place for David Boder in the gallery of heroic and visionary fieldworkers. --David G. Roskies, Jewish Theological Seminary Alan Rosen has done us all a favor. Most voices are lost to history. In writing The Wonder of Their Voices Rosen introduces us to David Boder and his pioneering work that joined the technology of voice recording with the experience of trauma. Rosen's research is thorough and illuminating and adds a new and important chapter to the social history of the mid-twentieth century. --David B. Baker, Archives of the History of American Psychology In his skilfully written book, Alan Rosen provides the first in-depth study of the earliest voice recordings collected in 1946, many from Holocaust survivors, and of the man behind this unique project. An essential study for anyone who wants to understand what the Holocaust meant for the victims and how their early voices resonated. --Jurgen Matthaus, director of Applied Research, Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies, U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum
<br> The Wonder of Their Voices is a beautifully written, thought-provoking account of the interview project. It will be relevant both to courses on oral history and also to courses dedicated to Holocaust testimony. --The Year's Work in Critical & Cultural Theory<p><br> Nothing seems more important and meaningful to survivors than to share their experiences. In this volume, the reader will find memories that will enrich his or her understanding of an era filled with pain and anguish. --Elie Wiesel, Nobel Peace Prize-winning author of Night <br><p><br> As the great ethnographer S. An-ski restored the lost lore of the East European shtetl, and as the martyred historian Emanuel Ringelblum documented the life and death of the Warsaw ghetto, David Boder rescued the living voices of the witnesses to the Holocaust. Thanks to his unique position as an insider-outsider, as an American in Paris, he alone understood how to capture their story before it was stifled or went stale. Through his meticulously told story, Alan Rosen has secured a permanent place for David Boder in the gallery of heroic and visionary fieldworkers. --David G. Roskies, Jewish Theological Seminary <br><p><br> Alan Rosen has done us all a favor. Most voices are lost to history. In writing The Wonder of Their Voices Rosen introduces us to David Boder and his pioneering work that joined the technology of voice recording with the experience of trauma. Rosen's research is thorough and illuminating and adds a new and important chapter to the social history of the mid-twentieth century. --David B. Baker, Archives of the History of American Psychology <br><p><br> In his skilfully written book, Alan Rosen provides the first in-depth study of the earliest voice recordings collected in 1946, many from Holocaust survivors, and of the man behind this unique project. An essential study for anyone who wants to understand what the Holocaust meant for the victims and how their early voices resonated. --Jurge
In its close examination of Boders unique project, Rosens book becomes the first full-length case study of early Holocaust testimony, and firmly calls into question long-held characterizations of Holocaust testimony as belated rather than immediate. Holli Levitsky, Holocaust and Genocide Studies
In its close examination of Boders unique project, Rosens book becomes the first full-length case study of early Holocaust testimony, and firmly calls into question long-held characterizations of Holocaust testimony as belated rather than immediate. Holli Levitsky, Holocaust and Genocide Studies a beautifully written, thought-provoking account of the interview project. Nicholas Chare, Year's Work in Critical and Cultural Theory
Author Information
Alan Rosen teaches Holocaust literature at the International School for Holocaust Studies, Yad Vashem, Israel. His previous books include Sounds of Defiance: The Holocaust, Multilingualism, and the Problem of English and Dislocating the End: Climax, Closure and the Invention of Genre.
