LISTEN + READ
In Their Own Words
Listen to short excerpts from survivors’ oral testimonies, read transcripts and learn about the people behind the voices.
Open the archive ↗The 60-second listening challenge
How to listen like a historian
Choose a short excerpt. Listen once without taking notes. Listen again and notice: What detail stays with you? What does the speaker actually say? What would you need to check in another source?
LISTENING LIBRARY
Oral Stories
SEARCH TESTIMONIES
USHMM Oral History Archive
Search a large collection of interviews with survivors, witnesses, rescuers and others targeted by Nazi Germany and its collaborators. Some interviews are restricted or require on-site access.
Open the archive ↗TESTIMONIES + PODCASTS
Fortunoff Video Archive
More than 4,400 testimonies. Some materials are openly presented as podcasts and teaching sets; access to the full collection requires registration and may require approval.
Open the archive ↗STUDENT ACTIVITIES
USC Shoah Foundation · IWitness
A free educational platform for middle- and high-school students, using short curated testimony clips and multimedia activities.
Open the archive ↗LISTEN CLOSELY
How to listen like a historian
Who is speaking, and when was the testimony recorded?
Is this a memory, an observation, an interpretation or information learned later?
What does the testimony help us understand?
What can it not tell us on its own? What other source could help?
A testimony is a personal account, not a complete record of every event. Listen with respect. Do not imitate accents, turn trauma into a game, or assume one person speaks for everyone. Some recordings describe persecution and violence.