Questions of Gender and Sexuality in Interviewer Trainings and Holocaust Survivor Testimonies

A public lecture by Carli Snyder (PhD candidate in History, City University of New York Graduate Center)
2022-2023 USC Shoah Foundation Robert J. Katz Research Fellow in Genocide Studies
(Join us in person for this lecture or attend virtually on Zoom)

Organized by the USC Dornsife Center for Advanced Genocide Research and the USC Shoah Foundation

"Does the sex of the interviewer make any difference?" "Do men and women interview differently?" Interviewer trainees asked these questions in 1994. Based on her analysis of materials in the USC Shoah Foundation’s institutional archives and her comparative research with testimonies, Carli Snyder will discuss her findings about the evolution of how the USC Shoah Foundation trained interviewers to handle issues of gender, sexuality, and sexual violence while conducting interviews and how interviewers implemented their training.

In the talk, Snyder will also offer a comparative analysis of a number of USC Shoah Foundation testimonies from the 1990s with women who were also interviewed by feminist Holocaust scholar Joan Ringelheim in the early 1980s. By studying the differences or similarities in interviews with the same women recorded over ten years apart, this approach will help to highlight the impact of time-specific interviewer-interviewee dynamics and what memories interviewees chose to disclose during specific interviews. Snyder will also discuss how the USC Shoah Foundation’s partner organizations have asked survivors of other genocides and mass crimes about these topics.

Lecture image is a behind-the-scenes photograph of the recording of Miriam Katin's testimony. She was interviewed by Nancy Fisher for the USC Shoah Foundation Visual History Archive. 

COVID-19 protocols:

• All attendees must conduct a self-health screening prior to attending. If you have any symptoms or are currently in an isolation period due to a recent infection, you may not attend.
• While masks are not required for this event, we strongly recommend that attendees, vaccinated or unvaccinated, consider wearing them for their own protection and the protection of others.
• Attendees with a recent close contact exposure (in the last 10 days) are required to wear a well-fitting mask at all times.
• Please note that protocols are subject to change.
• If you are feeling unwell day-of, please join us online! All attendees will be emailed the Zoom link upon registration.