Survivors on Schindler's List: Introduction
I’ve wanted to study the impact of films or other mediations of the Holocaust on survivor narratives, and the USC
Shoah Foundation’s Visual History Archive (VHA) makes this possible in a singular way. Its database indexes when interviewees discuss films in general and one film in particular: namely, Schindler's List. (Though the only individual film indexed on the VHA, it is not the only film mentioned in interviews). The VHA database reveals that 103 interviewees mention Schindler's List at some point in their interviews. All but one are Jewish Holocaust survivors. The majority—65—are in English, and of these, 15 were on Oscar Schindler’s list, so-called Schindler Jews.
These interviews and the context of their creation provide an opportunity to hear how a considerable number of survivors directly reference a film—the same film— within 5 years of its premiere, in the course of telling their personal histories, all recorded according to the protocols of the same project. This is a remarkable body of material to examine to address the larger topic at hand. Examining this body of material offers insight into the VHA as a cultural artifact in its own right as it contributes to a more general understanding of how individuals, caught up in epochal events that have become the subject of extensive public attention, engage this history and its mediation in the course of relating their personal narratives.
Shoah Foundation’s Visual History Archive (VHA) makes this possible in a singular way. Its database indexes when interviewees discuss films in general and one film in particular: namely, Schindler's List. (Though the only individual film indexed on the VHA, it is not the only film mentioned in interviews). The VHA database reveals that 103 interviewees mention Schindler's List at some point in their interviews. All but one are Jewish Holocaust survivors. The majority—65—are in English, and of these, 15 were on Oscar Schindler’s list, so-called Schindler Jews.
These interviews and the context of their creation provide an opportunity to hear how a considerable number of survivors directly reference a film—the same film— within 5 years of its premiere, in the course of telling their personal histories, all recorded according to the protocols of the same project. This is a remarkable body of material to examine to address the larger topic at hand. Examining this body of material offers insight into the VHA as a cultural artifact in its own right as it contributes to a more general understanding of how individuals, caught up in epochal events that have become the subject of extensive public attention, engage this history and its mediation in the course of relating their personal narratives.
The English-language interviews, some of which are examined here, include survivors then living in the US, Canada, the UK, and Australia. These survivors discuss Schindler's List in one of two places (sometimes both) in their interviews: either during accounts of the war years (this is especially true of Schindler Jews) or toward the very end of the interview, when, according to VHA protocols, survivors are asked general, “reflective questions” including “questions concerning faith and meaning, dreams, and messages to future generations.”
First path: Survivors on the content of Schindler's List
Second path: Survivors on watching Schindler's List
First path: Survivors on the content of Schindler's List
Second path: Survivors on watching Schindler's List
The context in which these interviews were conducted is key to understanding them. The VHA can be considered in the diachronic trajectory of collecting personal narratives of the Holocaust from the war years to the turn of the millennium; the VHA’s creation can also be examined within the synchronic range of epiphenomena surrounding Schindler’s List.
Third path: Schindler's List epiphenomena
Third path: Schindler's List epiphenomena
Fourth path: Documenting Holocaust survivor narratives: a sampling
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