2 April 2018

Are you a survivor of the Holocaust? Or do you know someone who is? If so perhaps you, or they, might be interested in recording their story as part of the Holocaust Survivor’s Centre’s Testimony Project?

The Testimony Project, which has now been in existence for more than 16 years, wants to speak to anyone who survived the Shoah, including people who came to Britain before the outbreak of the Second World War.

Interviews are carried out by a small, but dedicated, group of volunteers, who are trained and supervised. They usually take place at the interviewee’s home. Liberal Judaism’s Lesley Urbach helps to coordinate the scheme.

Lesley said: “These testimonies try to reflect the full and broad lifetime of the interviewee, giving a detailed description from early memories of childhood right up to the present day, encompassing the effect that the Holocaust has had on their life.”

The digitally recorded interviews are primarily for the survivor and his or her family. In addition, where permission has been given, the recordings are copied and lodged with a bona fide museum or library such as the National Sound Archive of the British Library, the Wiener Library or any other preferred by the interviewee.

Once filed, the interview can be accessed by researchers studying the Holocaust and so provide a first-hand account of the rise of Nazism in the 1930s and the shocking events which then unfolded.

Lesley added: “The value of these eye-witness accounts is immeasurable both in terms of trying to help us understand the unimaginable, and so attempting to learn for the future, as well as rebutting Holocaust denial.”

For more information and to take part, please contact Lesley on lcurbach@aol.com or 020 8346 2257, or Helen Norman on HNorman@jcare.org.