Contemporary Witness Accounts

With fewer and fewer survivors left to tell the grisly tale, remembrance of the Third Reich is gradually fading in Germany. Hence the enduring efforts to archive and digitize interviews with eyewitnesses of the era. Richard Lamers conducted this interview. More ...

Resi Kohlhofer, now 81, met her husband Otto in Kempten in 1943. He was a prisoner, and she was a part-time milk-shopkeeper. They had barely two months to get to know one another. They married shortly after the end of the war, in September 1945. Resi Kohlhofer now lives in Munich. The interview was held by Nicola Jacobi.More ...

Max Mannheimer, a Jew, was deported from his home in what is today the Czech Republic to various concentration camps. Today he is one of the most active eyewitnesses of the events of that time. He holds lectures on what happened to him and appeals to his audience to keep the memory alive and defend the principle of democracy. Max Mannheimer was interviewed by Nicola Jacobi. More ...

Sixty-one years after the end of the Second World War, a German translation of Mirjam Bolle's journal in letters has just been published. Written by one of the few Dutch Jews who survived the Holocaust, the journal offers an insider's unique perspective on the events as they unfolded – and is a stark portrayal of the dilemmas facing the Jewish authorities. By Jan Thorn-PrikkerMore ...

The book is a collection of intense interviews that Martin Doerry, assistant editor-in-chief of Spiegel, conducted with survivors of the Holocaust. By Jan Thorn-PrikkerMore ...