Recent Holocaust survivor videotestimony brought these witnesses into the limelight. Yet the success of these projects made it seem that was little previous survivor testimony. In truth, thousands of survivors testified at the earliest opportunity. This book provides a case study of early postwar Holocaust testimony, focusing on David Boder's 1946 displaced persons interviews. In July, 1946, psychologist Boder traveled to Europe to interview victims of the Holocaust who were in the DP camps and what he called “shelter houses.” During his nine weeks in Europe, Boder carried out approximately 13 ... More

Recent Holocaust survivor videotestimony brought these witnesses into the limelight. Yet the success of these projects made it seem that was little previous survivor testimony. In truth, thousands of survivors testified at the earliest opportunity. This book provides a case study of early postwar Holocaust testimony, focusing on David Boder's 1946 displaced persons interviews. In July, 1946, psychologist Boder traveled to Europe to interview victims of the Holocaust who were in the 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 state-of-the-art wire recorder. Likely the earliest audio recorded Holocaust survivor testimony, the interviews are today the earliest extant, valuable for the spoken word and for the songs that Boder recorded throughout the expedition. Eighty were transcribed into English, most of which were included in a self-published 3,100 page manuscript. This book sets Boder's project in the context of the postwar response to displaced persons, sketches the background of his life and work, chronicles in detail the evolving process of interviewing both Jewish and non-Jewish DPs, and examines the implications for the history of Holocaust testimony. Such postwar testimony, this book avers, deserves to be taken on its own terms—as unbelated testimony—rather than to be enfolded into earlier or later schemas of testimony. Moreover, Boder's efforts and the support he received demonstrate that the American postwar response to the Holocaust was not indifferent but rather engaged and resourceful.