Listening to Survivors

Listening to Survivors presents the voices of nineteen Holocaust survivors and two witnesses who shared their personal experiences with audiences at Oregon State University over the past four decades as part of the university’s Holocaust Memorial Week observance. The speakers recount revolts in Nazi-run killing centers, intimate friendships with Anne Frank and her family, medical experiments endured at the hands of infamous Nazi doctor Josef Mengele, and countless acts of defiance. Many of the individuals featured in this volume—including Eva Aigner, Les Aigner, Miriam Kominkowska Greenstein, Chella Velt Meekcoms Kryszek, and Alter Wiener—called Oregon home and served at the forefront of Holocaust commemoration in Oregon and public outreach to the state’s young people. By emphasizing the linkages between Oregon and the global tragedy of the Holocaust, this volume reaffirms the local and global relevance of efforts to prevent and redress persecution and mass violence against vulnerable populations.

Historian Katherine Hubler has arranged these recollections thematically in chapters centered on discrimination, refuge, resistance, rescue, and transitional justice. These themes align with Oregon’s Holocaust and Genocide Education learning concepts, discussion questions accompany each chapter to facilitate use in classrooms, and the introduction situates the speakers’ diverse experiences within the broader context of World War Two and the Nazis’ genocidal project.

Intended to bring the history of the Holocaust to all Oregonians, Listening to Survivors honors the legacy of outreach work of local survivors and serves as a reminder of the state’s connection to the Holocaust and commitment to genocide education and prevention.