Voice/Vision Holocaust Survivor Oral History Archive

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Emerich Grinbaum - October 3, 2000 & January 8, 2001

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

Sure, there're particular reasons. Because you know, I just read in the newspaper that Elie Wiesel--Wiesel, again--told that in a decade there were going to be no survivors practically. And then if they now denying, then in fifty years there was--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 what it was about.

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

You know, I'm a poor writer. I always had problems, you know uh, 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 good writer. 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 benefit over the spoken one or that the spoken one would be better than the written one, 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?