Mark Klempner's Blog - Posts Tagged "holocaust-rescuers"
Gisela is a Great Grandmother!
Those of you who have read my book will be happy to learn that Gisela Söhnlein, who helped to rescue hundreds of Jewish children during the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands, has just emailed me with the news that she has become a great grandmother. It truly amazes me that this woman who spent almost a year in a concentration camp and had for the five years of the war and the time leading up to it lived in a world where the future looked so bleak, has lived to be ninety-two and reached this happy and rare milestone. Mazel tov Gisela!
Holocaust Rescuers and Our Digital Age
Recently the grandson of Kees Veenstra, one of the Holocaust rescuers I feature in my book, contacted me by email and explained that he is the youngest grandson and did not get to know his grandfather very well because he was still quite young when Kees died.
He said he had read my book and got a lot out of the chapter about Kees, but he wondered if it might be possible to go a step further and listen to the interview recordings.
I told him I would be more than happy to try to make that happen, but that I had donated all my interviews with the rescuers to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM).
I told him that I would get in touch with USHMM and see if I could arrange to get him access to the interview tapes of his grandfather.
I had forgotten the librarian's name who runs the archive at USHMM, so I googled my name and the name of Kees Veenstra thinking that would bring up the information I'd need to track down the archivist.
To my amazement, it not only brought up that info but right at the top of the page there was a button to push that would enable any visitor to listen to my interview with Kees Veenstra!
Apparently all the interviews have been digitized and they are all available on the USHMM website, accessible with a click or two by anyone in the world with access to the Internet.
It is instances like this that make me really appreciate living in this digital age.
Here is the link, if you'd like to check it out:
http://collections.ushmm.org/search/c...
He said he had read my book and got a lot out of the chapter about Kees, but he wondered if it might be possible to go a step further and listen to the interview recordings.
I told him I would be more than happy to try to make that happen, but that I had donated all my interviews with the rescuers to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM).
I told him that I would get in touch with USHMM and see if I could arrange to get him access to the interview tapes of his grandfather.
I had forgotten the librarian's name who runs the archive at USHMM, so I googled my name and the name of Kees Veenstra thinking that would bring up the information I'd need to track down the archivist.
To my amazement, it not only brought up that info but right at the top of the page there was a button to push that would enable any visitor to listen to my interview with Kees Veenstra!
Apparently all the interviews have been digitized and they are all available on the USHMM website, accessible with a click or two by anyone in the world with access to the Internet.
It is instances like this that make me really appreciate living in this digital age.
Here is the link, if you'd like to check it out:
http://collections.ushmm.org/search/c...
