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Peter Wigmore grew up like many children of Holocaust survivors. He could see his mother's Auschwitz prisoner number tattooed on her forearm. When he wouldn't clean his plate his mom told him he'd better eat up because people starved in the concentration camps. But she never really talked about what she'd been through.
His dad told him bits and pieces, but warned Peter never to ask his mom about the camps directly. As he grew older, she would tell a little more. Peter eventually pieced the basics together. Still, his mother, Rosa, never spoke publically about the Holocaust. So Peter decided he would tell her story.
Starting in the 1980s, he visited eighth grade classes in Lake Oswego. Each year, students read The Diary of Anne Frank as an introduction to the Holocaust. Peter's visit helped them understand people who survived were real and part of their community.
But Peter kept his storytelling secret from his mother for 15 years. He'd feared she would be hurt, or angry. When he finally told her, he was surprised:
To my shock and delight, she spent the next three to four hours grilling me. It was like a master's exam. Whenever I was inaccurate, she would correct it. Still, we didn't go into the nitty gritty of daily life in Auschwitz. I knew what that was like from reading and talking with other people.
Eleven million people died in the Holocaust. Most living survivors are now in their 80s.
We heard Alter Wiener's firsthand account on a recent show, as well as the experience of Marie Abijuru, who witnessed the genocide in Rwanda. It's a difficult process for any genocide survivor to share what they've experienced. Many who chose to speak publically about it do so in the hopes what they went through won't happen again.
Today we're exploring who will tell those stories when they no longer can.
One organization in Boston is training students to tell Holocaust survivor stories. Cambodian-Americans in Oregon recently completed an oral history project that let twenty somethings ask their parents questions they've wondered about for years.
Of course, this issue preceeds twentieth century traumas. Some Native American children are raised visiting battlefields where their ancestors fought Europeans. Others know little about their past because family and tribal lines were broken through wars, epidemics, boarding schools and tribal termination.
How do you keep important history alive? Does it matter if an individual's story is told by another person, when so much is written down, and so many oral histories are being archived on video? What is it like to feel you are the only person who can keep a family member's survival story alive once they are gone?
Peter Wigmore is now part of the speakers bureau organized by the Oregon Holocaust Resource Center. I asked him if his children will carry on telling their grandmother's story when Peter no longer can. He said he isn't sure and looked a little bit pensive. But then he brightened up and told me about a girl who heard him speak back in the 80s at Lake Oswego Junior High. She was so moved she went on to study the Holocaust in college. Later, she spent several years working as a guide and educator at the site of the Dachau concentration camp.
Her name is Jennifer Wood and she now teaches fifth grade in Berlin. I called her up and asked her what she remembered about studying the Holocaust back in junior high. She talks about that here [11 minute MP3], and about her pursuit of deeper Holocaust knowledge afterward. I also asked her if she feels she's carrying on Rosa Wigmore's story specifically. That answer is here [1 minute MP3].
GUESTS:
- Miriam Feder: Writer and performer; granddaughter and niece of Holocaust survivors.
- Nitiya Sin: Architecture student at PSU; daughter of Khmer Rogue survivor.
- David Lewis: Manager, Cultural Resources Department, Confederated Tribes of the Grand Ronde; an author of the Oregon Encyclopedia.
Tagged as: genocide · holocaust · oral history
Photo credit: Courtesy Jennifer Wood
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I worry that as the living survivors from these terrible events pass on, it will become increasingly easy for younger people to turn them into political references or symbols rather than remembering them as real tragedies and important historical lessons. Case in point: the American political far right has recently taken to calling Obama and other politicians "Nazis." Could they have gotten away with this highly misguided reference several decades ago when Holocaust survivors were still alive in great numbers in this country? I don't think so.
When I was a child, I watched "Schindler's List" in the theater sitting next to a Holocaust survivor who lost his daughter and entire extended family members in the camps. He himself survived only by jumping from a moving train and then hiding in a small village where kindly people took him in. For me, this historical event is still real in my mind thanks to the stories he and others have passed on. I find the casual use of the word "Nazi" highly disturbing, and I worry that it will just become worse as time passes.
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What do your guests think of keeping their loved one's memories alive by working to prevent future and current genocides like the one in Darfur?
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i learned only a few years ago, who knows how, that my responsibility to our broken-hearted family, to our broken-boned community, is to repeat and repeat and repeat the story of our elder auntie emi covering big brother and me with her frail little body, taking the fatal garden tool blows of the other ethnic group, our neighbors. I will recall her love for us, her love of our lives -- instead of the brutality of those times.
because while both that love and that ugliness are true, as between the two, love is bigger. Love makes me better. Love makes all those I'm responsible for bigger and better.
Ronault LS (polo) Catalani
From Google mobile mail: rlscatalani@gmail.com
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Just wanted to let listeners know that there is a moving exhibit up at the Oregon Jewish Museum that pertains directly to this topic. The subject of storytelling is addressed through the letters and documents preserved by a survivor of a Nazi labor camp in Poland. Her daughter, when presented with the collection from her mother, had to decide what format to present her mother's story in. Was it to be a book? A film? a lecture? She chose to create this exhibit, using reproductions of letters between Sala at the labor camp and her family members who were not interned. The exhibit is called Letters to Sala and it is open through June 6 and the Oregon Jewish Museum at 1953 NW Kearney Street in Portland (website ojm.org)
Anne LeVant Prahl
Curator of Collections, Oregon Jewish Museum
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My wife's grandparents and mine were on opposing sides during the second world war... in an effort to ensure their stories stay alive my wife and I are recording their life stories, what they remember about their parents/siblings as well as the cultures/politic of their times and putting them into a series of DVD's (in fact, doing the same about ourselves).
We're doing it because I want my son to see how hard/crazy things can be, how hard his people worked to overcome the difficulties in their lives, share their learnings and remind him that there is always hope.
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I am really bothered that the hosts are referring to Native American genocide as "conflicts" over and over again. If you look at the historical record Native Americans in this country were certainly victims of genocide and this should not be minimized by calling it "conflicts." In some cases entire Native American nations were driven extinct by European colonizers. Land was stolen, people were forbidden to speak their own languages and were their own clothes. Isn't this genocide? Maybe it is difficult to admit this because of what it says about the founding of the United States.
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Listening to all these stories brings tears in my eyes although I have not lived or have any family members live it . My office colleage is from Cambodia , Kanitha Chan. She told me she lived in the forests for years . Her father and brother died there and also some of her members of the family got separated in Cambodia. My colleage has come to the US and is trying to help the family back home .
Just in December , she went to Cambodia and met some of her family members for the very first time . She felt so happy to do that
I love reading books about struggles of real people so I came across a book called " Half the sky " by Nicholas Kristoff and Sheryl Wudunn. It talks about the oppression women face and then how these women have overcome and been helping themselves and their families or become businesswomen and helped the community. I had seen Lisa Shannon (author of "A thousand sisters") on Oprah when Oprah was covering the show on "Half the sky". I knew a little of what she was doing for Congo but when I heard her speak in Powell's, I was all geared up to do something about saving lives in Congo . Lisa talks about her experiences in Congo , gene-side and Darfur that happened and is in some form is still happening . I therefore have signed up to sponsor a Congo sister and will help her in her education. I feel so happy to be able to help someone in my lifetime and hope my children will see me and do the same when they grow up too.
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"How do you keep important history alive?"
We support historians like the great Howard Zinn, who write the history that gets left out or revised by the victors.
We support people like the one who wrote about Ishi.
We support the University of California historians who wrote about the history of California.
The actual histories are available, we just have to keep bringing them into the light.
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As I am sure you expected, the word "genocide" is loaded and controversial. The majority of Americans are appalled at the Nazi and Khmer Rouge crimes against humanity. Likely they would be equally appalled at labeling their forebears actions against Native Americans as "genocide." The importance of agreed definitions beyond one's own positions, is once again clear and urgent. Especially given what is prsently happening at this second, in Darfur (and no doubt elsewhere.)
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I currently teach a course at Lewis and Clark College called the Anthropology of Violence, and after a semester of studying the wars and genocides of the 20th century, my students are grappling with the question of how to prevent these terrible atrocities against people. One thing they learn is that there is no biological basis for these occurrences but that, rather, they are always historically and culturally situated. Instead of the cop out "explanation" that genocides are due to "ancient hatreds" we need to see how such understandings of history are manipulated by those in power to justify subsequent actions against those deemed enemies. The nation-state itself is a target--we learn of how this political form is comprised of structures of violence.
In my own research on the Battle of Okinawa, in which 150,000 Okinawans (a third of the population in 1944-45) were killed as they found themselves caught between American and Japanese forces, it is clear that there are cultural reasons why women (the focus of my study) did not speak out about their experiences during wartime, as well as why their daughters and granddaughters have chosen to speak out. Silence and speaking out, private memories and public histories--these are some of the key themes in all studies of genocide that we can and should explore. Okinawan women speak out today because they see that people forget very easily, and they want to demonstrate through the details of their long ago memories that it can happen again and that we need to remember why it must be prevented, at the individual level. My book from Harvard University Press on this topic will be out at the end of the year. In addition, I want to add that Yale University has a long-standing archive on the Holocaust, which I used for my own research while a graduate student at Yale's Anthropology Department.
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This is Brit Schneider from the American Red Cross Oregon Trail Chapter, and I want to provide a couple of resources. If you are interested in tracing family members separated during the Holocaust or other armed conflicts, please visit our website or call us:
Our website is: www.oregonredcross.org or www.oregonredcross.org/holocaust
Our phone number is: 503-280-1455
If you would like to learn more, we are hosting an event this Thursday, April 29th at 7:30 pm at the Oregon Jewish Museum located at 1953 NW Kearney Street Portland, OR 97209.
All services are free and confidential. Thank you!
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A few weeks ago the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, ICC, was on WHYS and I posted a question asking if Bush/Cheney would ever be brought to justice for invading Iraq. He said that it is not a crime to invade a country but that we ought to work make it a crime.
I thought that our greatest generation had defined it as a crime at Nuremberg along with all the other crimes they defined, but apparently some people have worked to prevent or overturn such definitions, so that they cannot be prosecuted. Let's remind ourselves that Bush/Cheney un-signed the US from the ICC before they invaded Iraq.
It seems that we have to constantly keep telling the truth and exposing the people who feel hurt by the truth about themselves. It is like a marathon and we can never let up if we want to prevent genocides and other injustices from being commited again.
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Surprised by genocide.
I am an American of Armenian descent. Parents born here. Grandparents born in Eastern Turkey. In 1915 The Armenian Genocide began in Istanbul on April 24 and spread killing 1.5 million Armenians. I knew about this from age 10 but paid no attention. It was not discussed.
On a trip to Turkey in 2000 with friends from Trinity Cathedral I listened to Keith Jarrett playing and suddenly I was sobbing. I wrote a poem that connected my tears to my ancestral pain.
I called friends for help in writing the play. We performed it in Portland in Jan 2006. It was sad. At one point in the play, I screamed! For several years after I was not able to deal with genocide. I was given given books. I didn't read them.
A few weeks ago I signed up for a class at PSU: The Ethics of Peacemaking taught by an experienced peace maker, Professor H. Anastasiou. The models that interest me are Ireland, South Africa and Cyprus. I am interested in connections to build peaceful relationships. Armenians and Turks are talking. Someday soon the bridge from Kars Turkey to Armenia will open.
What I've: Memories are valuable but painful. Tell stories. Ask others to tell theirs. We must heal first, then can begin to make peace. But not before. The method I developed to heal my own pain was four steps: Follow the tears. Find the passion. Learn the lesson. Get into action. This is my ethic! (no metaphysics)
Self healing is important. I find the work of Carl Jung instructive especiallyl looking at dreams." I gather weekly to work with dreams.
David Francis Tufenkian
dtufenkian@gmail.com
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I heard Peter Wigmore's story when I was in Jr high school. At the time I had never heard of such a personal account of genocide. Years later I discovered that I had a relative named Eda Bender, who had survived the Great Purge. I continued to learn about my family history and owe my interest in history to Peter Wigmore's remarkable story of endurance. My family continues to tell the story and has written a book documenting her experiences within the Siberian camps from 1942 to 1957.
-Ian Scott Anderson
ianscottanderson@msn.com
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I was introduced to the history of the Holocaust at a relatively young age and in an entirely appropriate forum; as a ten-year-old attending church with a friend's family I and my friend would sit in the balcony pews reading religious comic books during the sermon. In those days (early 80s) there were several companies producing these comic books, and though many featured traditional stories of religion throughout history (the persecution of the Christians for example), religious conversion (especially the spiritual "rebirth" of Watergate cover-up co-conspirator Charles Colson), etc., they also featured Holocaust narratives. My memories of the images and stories are vague, but I will always recall my simultaneous sense of outrage and confusion; how could this happen?--how was this allowed to happen?--how could any nation, and any citizen of that nation, bring themselves to commit or allow or deny such wanton butchery and fundamentally criminal behavior? But one question always framed those others: why was I left to my own devices in attaining this knowledge; why wasn't I led by others in my pursuit of understanding modern civilization's collapse in Dachau, Treblinka, Auschwitz and the other Boschian pits of Nazi Germany? It is my firm belief that if we are to evolve as a civilization, that the histories and mindsets and methodologies of genocides must become a pillar of our education system. Children as early as 6 or 7 years of age should be taught—in graphic detail—what happened, why it happened, who allowed it to happen, and how to eliminate it first from national behavior, and then from humanity's behavior; thousands of thousands of children younger than that were murdered, so why should children not be exposed to a threat to their existence, their families' existence, and to civilization's existence. To this day I am grateful—despite my lifelong choice to abstain from organized religion—that these religious comics introduced me to a subject that to this day occupies my soul; that this in fact is the case speaks to the power of communication and education. Please talk to your children about the NAZI holocaust, and other (especially American) genocidal chapters in history; their future depends on it. Thank you TOL for addressing—once again—a subject dear to my heart, my head, and my home.
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Here's the link to the Cedar Mill Community Library Oral History Project mentioned on the show.
http://www.cedarmill.plinkit.org/news-events/programs-cedar-mill/oral-history-project.html
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Comments are now closed.
I think it's very important to keep these kinds of stories alive, and it hurts me to hear that some schools have taken the holocaust and Hitler out of their curriculum because it is too much for the kids to handle. It may be difficult to understand and to learn about but it is REAL! It is important to know our history otherwise we will for sure find ourselves in a world similar to that in 1984 by George Orwell. it isn't right to keep this kind of information locked away, and it especially isn't fair to all the Jewish families to have their past wiped away from school curriculum like it was nothing. This type of American behavior sickens me. People have a RIGHT to information, and that information should not be regulated to this extent-- sometimes I feel like I'm living in a Communist state.