Oral History In The Holocaust

The word “history” is a term defined as the study of past events, associated with someone or something. With it comes an overwhelming amount of documents, records, and physical artifacts collected and housed for society to dig through, in order to properly evaluate and learn from the past. Many times when written history is presented, it has been edited and re-edited by a secondary source writer, rather than composed by actual witnesses, which proposes a problem; that of the interjectory of the writers own interpretation. Lost is the authentic perspective or narrative from an actual person of a past event. Recorded oral history preserves the viewpoints of individual voices, whether wealthy or poor, having personal knowledge of past events through spoken assessments, recollections and

In the context of the Holocaust, oral history has been especially significant and beneficial to document and give witness to the horrific suffering and torture sustained by humans during the World War II. Particularly, it is imperative and an obligation to study the testimonials and biographies of those who were labeled as political prisoners taken away to concentration camps to be brutally persecuted and killed.
The Holocaust was an atrocity of an unimaginable magnitude, with the loss of 6 million Jews plus 5 million others; it is unacceptable to question the validity of oral history in relationship to the Holocaust. To question or deny the oral testimonies of the Holocaust is as if one were to refute the existence of the Holocaust, along with all those who have lost their lives, and its impact on modern society. However, the article entitled History Matters, as seen on George Mason University’s website under the Interpreting Oral History section, points out the potential flaws of oral history. The article states, “just because someone says something is true, however colorfully or convincingly they say it, doesn't mean it is true. Just because someone