"Hear our Voices" Project - Max and Tessie Zelikovitz Centre for Jewish Studies

What is HoV?

Hear Our Voices: Holocaust Survivors Share their Stories of Trauma and Hate is a bilingual online course that uses the voices of Holocaust survivors to educate students on the Holocaust and Antisemitism. Separated into four modules, Hear Our Voices incorporates a variety of historical evidence to contextualize survivor testimony including digitized maps, primary documents, timelines, and academic scholarship. The first module, “Oral History”, focuses on the uses of survivor testimony ranging from the Nuremberg Trials to the present. In the second module, “Gender and Sexuality”, students will investigate the depiction of gender and sexuality during the Holocaust. The third module, “Religion and Culture”, analyses Jewish, Christian, and Muslim responses to the Holocaust. Finally, the fourth module, “Antisemitism and Racism” will explore the different types of anti-Jewish attitudes and behaviours over time and assess how they contributed to the genocide against Europe’s Jewish populations. These modules work together to offer a contextualized learning experience of the Holocaust while highlighting what is at the core of this project, the survivor’s stories.

We are pleased to share project trailer links, in English and French, demonstrating a sneak peak of the online course.

EN: https://mediaspace.carleton.ca/media/2022_HOV_Module%200_Introduction_Trailer_EN/1_ha25ufh8
FR: https://mediaspace.carleton.ca/media/2022_HOV_Module%200_Introduction_Trailer_FR/1_v6539qov

Our new Oral Histories

Below is a video of excerpts from oral history interviews with Holocaust survivors, members of the second generation and families of righteous gentiles. These interviews were conducted through the Hear Our Voices e-campus Ontario project at Carleton University.

Annette Wildgoose

(Retrieved from https://photos.yadvashem.org/photo-details.html?language=en&item_id=14808&ind=8)

Annette Wildgoose knew her mother was different than other mothers. Listen to a story of the second generation, learning her mother’s history as a passenger on the St-Louis escaping Nazi Germany, and gaining the knowledge and skills to speak her mother’s story.

Thomas Paul

(Retrieved from https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/liberation-of-gunskirchen-lager)

Thomas Paul tells a different type of Holocaust story, one that begins with his father, a US soldier who liberated the Gunskirchen lager in Austria. Hear him connect his father’s memory of that horror with his own experiences as a soldier in Vietnam and how that shapes his own ministry as a pastor.

Josef Eisinger

Josef Eisinger was one of the oldest boys to survive by being sent on the Kindertransport from Nazi occupied territories to England, internment in Canada and ultimately serving in the Canadian army, training infantry soldiers to fight the Nazis.

This interactive map of Josef and Lesley’s emigration journey was created by Nicola Woodhead, a PhD candidate in History at the Parkes Institute at the University of Southampton, UK (above and in the link below). Her doctoral dissertation seeks to provide the first comprehensive examination of transmigrant Kinder—the Kinder who did not permanently settle in Great Britain—by mapping both the experience of transmigrant Kinder and the memory of these experiences.

To effectively use this map, press on the menu button on the top left. You will then be able to scroll down and see Josef and Lesley’s journey in the form of a list. Click on the different icons to discover pictures from their lives and a few clips from Josef’s oral history.

Interactive map link: https://www.google.com/maps/d/edit?mid=1MTnChf0eaHFLmVtqJf1QFAAYrk8UANw8&ll=29.970613515911285%2C-30.20619855000001&z=3

Tom Deri

(Retrieved from https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/photo/jewish-forced-laborers-in-a-quarry )

Tom Deri was a boy when his father was sent to a labour camp and his family went into hiding in Budapest. From the war years, through the Hungarian revolution and immigrating to Canada, Tom tells the story of how the Holocaust shaped a family’s destiny.

Bryna Wallace

Courtesy of Bryna Wallace: jacket_from HOV_Scan_026_Photo_Museum Winnipeg

Bryna Wallace and Lisa Cohen, mother and daughter, share a tangle of family memories of the war, told over generations. Bryna’s father led his young bride, extended family and neighbours into the forest. 65 Jews fled into the forest and 66 came out, the 66^th being baby Bryna.

Lisa Bogdonov

Photo taken at Bryna Wallace’s interview.

Lisa Cohen and Bryna Wallace share a tangle of family memories of the war, told over generations. Hear Lisa share how her family’s history shaped her values and identity.

Susan Bloomfield

Photo of menorah courtesy of Susan Bloomfield.

Susan Bloomfield’s family had a menorah but wasn’t Jewish. Hear how her great uncle’s family hid a Jewish family in their attic in the Netherlands through the end of the war and how those stories, and the family’s menorah, came to Canada.

About us

	Dr. Deidre Butler is a professor at Carleton University. On top of her work as project lead and primary investigatory, Dr. Butler also co-chairs the second module “Gender and Sexuality” and the third module “Religion and Culture”.
	Marie-Catherine Allard is a doctoral candidate in Cultural Mediations. She is the project coordinator of Hear Our Voices and co-chair of the second module, “Gender and Sexuality”.
	Dr. Anna Sheftel is an Associate Professor in the School of Conflict Studies at Saint Paul University. Dr. Sheftel is chair of the first module, “Oral History”.
	Jesse Toufexis is a doctoral candidate in the department of classics and religious studies at the University of Ottawa and co-chair of the third module, “Religion and Culture”.
	Dr. Hilary Earl is a Professor in Modern European History and Genocide studies at Nipissing University. She is chair of the fourth module, “Antisemitism and Racism”.
	Dr. Hernan Tesler-Mabé is an adjunct Professor in the Department History and of Classics and Religious Studies and Coordinator of the Vered Jewish Canadian Studies Program and President of the Association for Canadian Jewish Studies. Dr. Tesler-Mabé works with each module by sharing his research expertise on cultural materials such as music, art, literature, news items etc.
	Jacqueline Girard is an undergraduate student in History at Nipissing University working as the research assistant for the fourth module, “Antisemitism and Racism”.
	Erin Wilkins is an incoming Master student in Religion and Public Life at Carleton University working as the research assistant for the first module, “Oral History”.
	Noë Bourdeau is an incoming Master student in Religion and Public Life at Carleton University working as the research assistant for the second module, “Gender and Sexuality”.
	Hannah Javanpour is an undergraduate student in Public Affairs and Policy Management at Carleton University working as the research assistant for the third module, “Religion and Culture”.
	Sarah Benson is an undergraduate student in History at the University of Ottawa working under Dr. Tesler-Mabé in each module.
	Dana Fischman in an undergraduate student at Carleton University and works as the research and ethics coordinator.