If you’re looking for an example of a published oral history
that’s a model of the form, I don’t think you’ll go far wrong by looking at
Harry Butowski’s just-published I
Survived: My Name is Yitzkhak (2015: Word Association Publishers[1]).
It’s the recollections of the late Isadore (Yitzkhak) Neiman, covering his
youth in what would become at various times part of Russia, Poland and Belarus,
his escape from Hitler’s military and loss of his family to the Holocaust, and
his struggles to survive inside, outside, and around the armies of Poland and
the USSR through World War II and its aftermath until his immigration to
America in 1951.
Over the decades, I’ve read a fair amount about 20th
century Europe and the near-destruction of its Jewish population by the Nazis,
but I don’t think I’ve ever read anything – other than maybe Anne Frank’s diary
– that’s quite as evocative as Mr. Neiman’s account. His youth in the village
of Czuczewicze, his love of potatoes, his rationalizations for stealing to
survive, his plodding treks across vast stretches of the continent with
thousands of others trying to stay ahead of the Nazi armies, his diversity of
coping mechanisms in the chaos of the post-war USSR – it all comes through with
remarkable, touching honesty.
This clarity reflects Butowski’s skillful recording and
editing. Butowski began recording Yitzkhak’s recollections in 1974 out of
simple interest and friendship, lost track of him when he (Butowski) came to
Washington to work as an historian with the National Park Service, and
resurrected his notes and tapes after retiring. He has used the latter in editing
the former, apparently with a very light hand. A few footnotes to add
historical detail, a useful prefatory section that puts Mr. Neiman’s life in
historical context, and that’s about it (though anyone who's edited oral history knows that there had to be a lot of effort behind that light touch). So what at least seems to be Yitzkhak’s
authentic voice comes through, and is truly compelling.
I Survived is a
triumph, and should stand as a testament to the millions who didn’t.
[1] http://www.amazon.com/I-Survived-My-Name-Yitzkhak/dp/1633851001/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1449879850&sr=8-1&keywords=I+Survived%3A+My+Name+is+Yitzkhak
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