Voice/Vision Holocaust Survivor Oral History Archive

In August, 1981, The Holocaust Memorial Center in West Bloomfield asked me to assist them in starting an oral history collection of Holocaust survivors. Salvatore Katan, a Jewish survivor from Salonika, Greece, agreed to an interview. By 1982, I had completed some twenty audio and video interviews and the UM-Dearborn decided the project would be better served if it were more accessible to researchers and students. From the start, the University enthusiastically supported the undertaking, providing studio time, materials and a dedicated staff led by Greg Taylor, then a student who worked in the TV Studio. (Greg, head of technical services in the Studio, still oversees the technical aspects of the project).

For twenty-five years the UM-Dearborn has devotedly upheld the project, with the support of Provost Simpson, Chancellor Little, Dean Anderson-Levitt and Tim Richards, director of the Mardigian Library. The library staff--Barbara Kriigel, Beth Taylor and others have nurtured the collection--named the Voice/Vision Holocaust Survivor Oral History Archive--with extraordinary solicitude and professionalism. Six years ago, we hired Dr. Jamie Wraight as curator. Together they and others have crafted one of the most professional and useful Holocaust resources. The archive, which contains some three hundred interviews, has more than fifty testimonies on line--transcriptions and voices. We have received millions of "hits" and know of at least six scholarly works and numerous articles that have utilized the site.

Voice/Vision carefully and meticulously preserves memory and serves historical education. We have sent copies of all our materials to the Yale Fortunoff Archives and the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C. The archive is a tribute to our campus and those who conserve it.

Sidney Bolkosky
Director, Voice/Vision