Many survivors have written memoirs. Few have been translated. In recent years there has been greater awareness of the need or importance for oral history, recorded personal stories which supplement and illuminate formal documents. When a person tells his story, not as a witness at a trial, but to an experienced interviewer or for his grandchildren sake, there emerges a different view. The whole person comes to light.
Oral history is still new.
It may well be one of the most useful tools to convey the experience of those days, in a dictatorship. But who we really were only we could tell, provided we are given a chance. Most perished, but some managed to write diaries, memoirs, stories, poems, drawings, even music. For years I have searched for recorded stories or books, mainly to satisfy my own personal needs. I was desperate to learn how my parents might have fared after deportation to Theresienstadt.