Unforgotten memoirs
Never forget: New initiative calls for posting diaries, memoirs of holocaust survivors on internet
The number of remaining Holocaust survivors is diminishing each year, taking with them many memories. Personal documents have been kept hidden for years, unpublished and out of the public's eye.
In order to prevent these important testimonies from perishing, the Claims Conference is launching a huge project to save Holocaust memoirs that have yet to be published or are inaccessible to the public.
Holocaust survivors worldwide have been invited to submit their memories and personal diaries from that time, as part of the Conference's initiative.
After being professionally reviewed by historians and Holocaust experts, these manuscripts will be added to the worldwide collection and serve as an important data source for organizations researching and documenting the Holocaust as well as for students, pupils and any other interested parties.
Digital media is being enlisted to save the old manuscripts, which will be uploaded onto a unique internet website titled the "Worldwide Shoah Memoirs Collection." Information about the worldwide collection and instructions on how to submit manuscripts can be obtained at the project's website: http://memoirs.claimscon.org
Yad Vashem's Hall of Remembrance (Photo: Reuters)
According to estimates, survivors and their families have thousands of manuscripts, whether in diary form or as stories recounting personal events from the Holocaust. Only a few survivors have managed to publish their material to date.
The campaign will be launched in association with the Yad Vashem Holocaust Martyrs' and Heroes' Remembrance Museum, the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, the Center of Contemporary Jewish Documentation (CDJC) in France, the Warsaw Institute of Jewish History, and the Shoah Foundation’s Holocaust Testimonial project in the US.
Hundreds of local organizations around the world will also help gather memoirs for the worldwide collection.
The project is being promoted by Ynet's Activism channel, which will work together with the Claims Conference to inform survivors and their families of this collection initiative and will also publish some of the diaries submitted now and later on.
Eitan Glickman contributed to the report
