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Emerich Grinbaum - January 8, 2001

Um, do you think there's any particular reason for, for survivorsto do this, to, to talk about it?

Sure, there're particular reasons. Because you know, I just readin the newspaper that Elie Wiesel-Wiesel, again-told that in a decade therewere going to be no survivors practically. And then if they now denying,then in fifty years there was [laughs] it's going to be like, you know uh,nothing, nothing happened.

So this was-you think that the testimonies will stop the deniers.

I hope so. At least, at least uh, uh, they might contribute to,to, to perpetuate the, the, the, the, the notion that Holocaust was and whatit was about.

Y...um, Random House, the publisher, is asking for survivormemoirs to publish. There's a massive project and Wiesel is going to be theeditor. Uh, they're collecting, anyone who wants to write their memoirs, they'recollecting memoirs. W...what do you think about the written memoirs as opposedto this kind of thing? Which...

You know, I'm a poor writer. I always had problems, you knowuh, in, in the schools. Instead of writing some kind of you know, essays,I, I, I would prefer to solve some mathematical or physical problem, but.I'm, I'm a poor writer, especially uh, now and especially in English.

But you're an eloquent talker.

Pardon me?

You're an eloquent talker.

Yeah! But writing, I'm not. My son is, sure, my son is a goodwriter. He, he's writing. But I am, I, I am not a good writer.

But do you think that the written word would have some benefitover the spoken one or that the spoken one would be better than the writtenone, or?

I don't know.

You don't know.

I don't know.

That's a question.

Question, yeah. So what are you going to do with this?