Cotidianidad y violencia en un campo de concentración nazi

• Published in: Historia antropología y fuentes orales 1998-01 (20), p.53-73
• Main Authors: Straede, Therkel, García, Xosé Lois
• Format: Article
• Language: Spanish
• Subjects: Crímenes de guerra y silencios
• ISSN: 1136-1700

What will happen to collective memory of the Holocaust in the future? The era of eye-witnesses is drawing to a close, and professional historiography will take over. But, since academic history has, traditionally, marginalized the victims' experiencie, the risk of amnesia is at stake. Offensive and extensive collection of Oral History testimony can make up for the omissions of earlier decades. Survivors' life stories are more than just representations of the fact of survival and the person who survived, they also tell us about the past reality this person lived through. A pluralist efford should secure that these life stories be collected wherever survivors of the Holocaust be found. Many aspects of the Holocaust have, so far, only briefly been touched upon by historians. Industrial slave labour by Jews and non-Jews is one of them. The article describes results of an Oral History project about Nazi concentration camps affiliated with the Volkswagen corporation. It focuses on a small women's camp in what is now Wolfsburg (Germany), and discusses aspects of everyday life of the 500-650 Jewish prisoners under the condition of permanent terror: selection in Auschwitz and its impact on the experience of the work camp, hygiene, health, illness and death, labour, food and starvation as well as forms of resistance. The intention is to demonstrate the value of Oral History narratives as sources to the events and structures of the Holocaust and advocate that we collect the evidence of survivors while we still can.