Trauma and Emotions
Time: 2025-09-18 14:30 - 16:30
Location: Medium Hall A at Auditorium Maximum
Chairman: Barbara Klich-Kluczewska
Events within this Session
Documenting Trauma: Collecting Oral Histories of the October 7 Attacks and the War that Followed
Type: session | Language: English
Time: 14:30 - 16:30
Abstract
Testimonies of survivors from traumatic events have long played a central role in shaping collective memory, national reconciliation processes, and public discourse. Since the 1980s, video testimonies of Holocaust survivors have become foundational to Jewish and Israeli memory cultures, contributing to education, justice, and social solidarity, while also serving therapeutic, legal, and political purposes. Following the October 7, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel, a wave of civic and institutional documentation initiatives has emerged tom document the voices of survivors of the attack. These include projects such as “Testimony 710,” the USC Shoah Foundation’s new collections, and “Survived to Tell” by Israel-Is. Inspired by Holocaust memory practices, these efforts apply similar methodologies—such as first-person narrative, visual testimony, and archive building—while operating in an era defined by rapid digital communication, mass media saturation, and widespread access to recording technologies.
This lecture explores how the functions and meanings of testimony are changing in response to the digital age. It examines the impact of immediacy, visual abundance, and accelerated diffusion on the nature and reception of testimony and asks whether different formats and platforms—ranging from formal archives to social media—serve divergent aims. By tracing continuities and ruptures between Holocaust testimony and contemporary documentation of the October 7 events, the lecture reflects on the shifting ethical, educational, and political roles of testimony today. Ultimately, it raises broader questions about the place of mediated witnessing in an era of trauma, polarization, and contested narratives.
Speakers
“I Had to Listen and Appear as Unmoved as Possible”: How did Care Workers Relate to Child Survivors’ Sharing their War-Time Experiences?
Type: session | Language: English
Time: 14:30 - 16:30
Abstract
One of the largely debated issues in post-war studies is the extent to which survivors of the Holocaust spoke about their experiences. Whilst for many years, researchers posited the idea of a post war “silence” is has become more evident that survivors in the immediate post-war period did speak about the experiences, especially amongst themselves. The purpose of this paper is to assess and relate the experience of child survivors in particular. It will examine if children in the early post-war period communicated what they had endured under Nazi occupation and if so, what were the types of memories that they shared? This presentation will be based on sources created by the children’s’ “caretakers”, who worked with the children in different settings; mainly children’s homes in Allied Occupied Germany. The task of these care workers was to assist in their physical and emotional rehabilitation; one of the questions that will be addressed is how did care workers perceive the child’s remembering of the painful past – as therapeutic or as an obstacle to their “return to life.”
Speakers
Fragments of Memory: A Therapeutic Oral History Approach to Trauma Narratives
Type: session | Language: English
Time: 14:30 - 16:30
Abstract
For over two decades, my work in Oral History has been dedicated to documenting the lives of diverse communities within Israel and the Jewish diaspora, encompassing Holocaust survivors, asylum seekers, the Bulgarian community, and the Sephardi Voice UK project, among others. Recently, my focus has shifted to capturing the firsthand accounts of those affected by the tragic events of October 7th. This body of work consistently intersects with trauma, requiring a sensitive and nuanced approach that transcends mere fact-finding. This paper will explore the evolution of my methodology, which merges between my hands on experience in imitating and managing Oral History projects – my documentary filmmaking experience - with person-centered counseling, resulting in Oral History projects that are geared for helping project participants in their therapeutic journey to recovery . Through this lens, I emphasize the importance of recognizing and addressing the emotional and psychological needs of survivors, ensuring their well-being and autonomy are central to the interviewing process. This approach is not only about collecting memories but also about helping participants give them meaning within their lives. I will discuss the pilot project currently underway, which exemplifies this methodology by integrating Oral History interviewing with narrative psychology and active processing techniques. This innovative approach facilitates participants in reconstructing, processing, and documenting their traumatic experiences within a therapeutic framework. The aim is to assist individuals in not only revisiting and reconstructing past events but also in integrating these experiences into their broader life narrative, ultimately helping them regain a sense of agency and control. By presenting this work, I aim to contribute to the ongoing discourse on trauma within Oral History, advocating for practices that prioritize the well-being of survivors. The paper will underscore the need for ongoing support and follow-up care, arguing that the role of the Oral Historian extends beyond documentation to actively fostering healing and resilience within communities impacted by trauma.
Speakers
“Like a Sack of Garbage that Everyone Wants to Put Away:” How to Listen to Stigmatized Survivors of Kosovo Wartime Rape
Type: session | Language: English
Time: 14:30 - 16:30
Abstract
The paper discusses the author’s oral history research on survivors of wartime sexual violence in Kosovo in the context of both a book and a broader investigation conducted for a provider of psychosocial services. The research is based on a vivid account of the lives of thirty women and four men who wished to maintain anonymity but talked to the author because they want their stories heard. Through these unique individuals, the author provides an exploration of the voice and silence of women and men whose lives were shaped by patriarchal rules, altered and undone by a violent regime and war, and now struggle to make sense of their suppressed aspirations, unrecognized bravery, relentless suffering, crippling stigmatization, and unflagging sense of family and community. The narrators of this oral history are a group of civilian victims that remains marginalized in contemporary society. With this oral history, we hope to bring forward their untold stories as well as add to the scholarship on wartime sexual violence, an issue that has globally risen to public attention over the past three decades. But while a substantial body of legal and social science research has expanded our understanding of the issue, scholars have mainly followed in the path of human rights researchers, who have produced a wealth of information on the circumstances and execution of this crime, constructing the subjectivity of survivors mainly on their traumatic experience. By “lending our ears” to survivors, oral history makes them tellers of their own life stories as they remember them in conversation with the author. The subjectivity of those narrators emerges in the interaction with the broader social and historical event and through recollecting memories that disclose what they imagined their future would be, what they now think their past should have been, and what they are struggling to achieve in the present.
Speakers
Home Children and Oral History. Remember. Compensate. Reconcile?
Type: session | Language: English
Time: 14:30 - 16:30
Abstract
Though oral history was, and still is a part of history, it has always been conscious of the responsibility (oral) history has for the current society - in this context, mentioned in the CfP, the paper has to be seen. It focuses on actual trends in research concerning the mistreatment of children and young people in institutions like orphanages, approved homes and in foster families during the time period 1945 to 1999 in Austria. This country has meanwhile – regardless all existing deficiencies – one of the worldwide best and socially equitable systems of compensation concerning the above mentioned mistreatment. In this context the Austrian National Council President stressed the fact, that the work of journalists, historians and sociologists and their published results formed the base of the improvements. 15 years ago nobody would have expected this progress. Recently, victims in hospitals and psychiatric clinics were included in the compensation process. The question “Do the voiceless still need oral history to give them voice?” was raised and it will get discussed in this presentation. For “the voiceless” telling their own life story seems to be one possibily to raise its own voice. The presentation will describe the new trends in relevant Austrian research and practice dealing with this specific past. This includes as well the implementation of some exemplaric interviews and cases. Interviewing in this context, where the question of mistreatment, sexual abuse and violations is often raised, interviews which are often connected with the question of compensation - does this influence and touch the reliabiliy of interviews? The author works as historian in this research field, he conducted more than hundred Interviews and he is member of the “home children”- commission of the Austrian Ombudsman institution.