The Art of Listening: Practices from the Fortunoff Video Archive
How does one bear witness to the Holocaust? And how do we listen to testimony? In this unit, students explore the complexity of testimonies as personal narratives and historical sources. They analyze the Fortunoff Archive’s interviewing methodology to explore how recording practices contribute to the ways in which survivors tell their stories.
Students first consider the many aspects of giving, collecting, and witnessing testimony. They then study archival documents and videos that describe the ethos of the Fortunoff Archive, its roots in the New Haven survivor community, and its witness-centered approach to collecting testimony. By examining the interviewers’ training, preparation, and presence, students analyze how empathetic listening grounded in historical study became an anchor of the Fortunoff interviewing practice.
In the final activity, students apply the insights they gained as they listen to the testimony of a Hungarian Jewish survivor Betty Deutsch. They learn about her life before, during, and after the Holocaust while also attending to her tone, emotion, and body language. They are invited to listen in a way that mirrors the Fortunoff interviewing practice and centers Mrs. Deutsch’s voice, agency, and narrative choices. Educators are invited to adapt these materials for their classes and to apply insights from Fortunoff Archive’s interviewing practice to contemporary oral history projects.
1. Witnessing the Holocaust
Explore the complexity of bearing witness to the Holocaust. Learn how testimonies are mediated by culture, language, recording technologies, and other factors. Analyze how survivors in New Haven, Connecticut created the Holocaust Survivors Film Project that later became the Fortunoff Video Archive.
2. Centering the Witness
Learn about the Fortunoff interview methodology and develop listening skills needed to encounter Holocaust testimonies. Explore how interviewers prepared to listen and how the Fortunoff recording practices sought to empower the witness to tell their story.
3. Listening to Testimony: Betty Deutsch
Listen to survivor Betty Deutsch describe her life before, during, and after the Holocaust. This case study invites students to bear witness to Betty’s life, develop empathetic listening skills, and analyze the ways in which her testimony corroborates and complicates the historical narrative.