Voice/Vision Holocaust Survivor Oral History Archive

The Linda Fredin/Cavelero Mid-High Digital Children's Book Collection

In January 2009, the Voice/Vision Holocaust Survivor Oral History Archive was approached by Linda Fredin, a language arts teacher at Cavelero Mid-High school in Lake Stevens, Washington. Ms. Fredin had assigned her students Elie Wiesel's book Night, and then asked them to visit the Voice/Vision Archive's website, pick a survivor whom they felt connected with and then write an illustrated children's book based on that person's experiences. Ms. Fredin then had the books copied and bound and asked the archive if they would be willing to send copies of the books to the survivors, which the archive readily agreed to do.

In 2010, Ms. Fredin and the Archive collaborated on the project again, this time gaining the necessary permissions to scan and post the digitized copies of the books as a special collection on the Voice/Vision website.

The books represent a genuine effort at understanding and empathy for what the survivor's experienced during the Holocaust. They are rich in symbolism (which is explained on the last page of each book) and are evidence of the personal connections that can be made by engaging the voices of the survivors and their powerful stories. Finally, the books represent an innovative approach to Holocaust education that utilizes the survivor interviews to enhance the learning experience of the students.

The Voice/Vision Holocaust Survivor Oral History Archive is honored to house the Linda Fredin/Cavelero Mid-High Digital Children's Book Collection which contains the digital copy of the children's books created by Linda Fredin's ninth-grade English students at Cavelero Mid-High. The collection contains four co-authored books from 2008-2009, and thirty-one single-authored books from the 2009-2010.

Every effort has been made to retain the integrity of the books so they appear just as the students created them. Due to fonts and media used, some books may be easier to view than others. The Flipping Book program allows users to zoom and move around individual pages for easier viewing.

Abe the Orange
Author: Tory Rothgeb
Survivor: Abraham Holcman