Dawn Skorczewski started out studying the role of the interviewer in Holocaust survivor testimony, but before long, she was captivated by the Visual History Archive’s great wealth of material on survivors from the Netherlands.

Skorczewski, director of University Writing and Professor of English at Brandeis University, is working on a project with three other professors called “Dutch Voices from the USC Shoah Foundation Visual History Archive.” The project examines Dutch testimonies in order to broaden the understanding of the Dutch Holocaust experience beyond the more widely known story of Anne Frank.

Topics Skorczewski and her collaborators have studied include hiding, resistance, sexual violence and religious identity. For example, they have uncovered fascinating accounts of Jewish children making perilous train journeys to safety and their period of readjustment when they returned to their parents after living out the war with other families. Stories about people who went into hiding provide a different perspective from Anne Frank’s experience. She hopes to collect the findings into a book of essays. In addition, she is also working on a book titled Bodies as Evidence in the USC Shoah Archives.

Skorczewski said that, like visiting a historical site, there is no substitute for watching testimony. The survivors’ stories are incredibly powerful and visceral, she said, revealing gritty, even shocking, details.

When her students have the opportunity to watch testimony as part of her classes on Anne Frank and the Holocaust, “they love it,” she said. Testimony allows them to be in the presence of Holocaust survivors from all over the world, telling stories they wouldn’t otherwise get to hear.

She also noted that the Visual History Archive allows students to do real research.

“This kind of listening process is intensely individual and creative,” she said. “It allows them to make links between testimonies that have never been made before.”