Questions to Ask a Holocaust Survivor
For students, teachers and audience members preparing to hear a Holocaust survivor speak at a school visit or a museum talk, and for relatives recording a family member's story. The questions follow the order of a life: before the war, the war years, liberation, rebuilding and what the survivor wants remembered. Each has a note on how to ask it, what to listen for and what to leave for the survivor to raise.
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The questions
Each question, and why to ask it
Before the war
Where did you grow up, and what was your home like before the war?
Why ask it
Starting with the home puts a whole person in the room before anything is taken from them. Write the town and the street down as they say them and check the spelling at the end, since many of these places have changed name or country since.
Who was in your family, and what were they like?
Why ask it
Ask for the people as they were: a father's trade, a sister's temper, who sang in the house. Leave what became of them for the survivor to tell, and notice the names, because having those names heard is a reason many survivors give for speaking.
What do you remember about school and your friends before everything changed?
Why ask it
Students find this the easiest way in, because the answer is familiar: a strict teacher, a best friend, a game in the street. Keep any friend's name in mind, because it may come back later in the story and you will want to recognize it.
What part did religion and tradition play in your home?
Why ask it
Ask rather than assume: a family that kept every Sabbath and one that barely marked the holidays were persecuted alike. The question also fits a speaker who is not Jewish, since Roma and Sinti families and others were targeted too.
How old were you when things began to change for your family, and what did you notice first?
Why ask it
The first sign is usually small and exact: a notice in a shop window, a friend who crossed the street, a parent who lost a job. Their age tells you whose eyes you are seeing it through, so follow with what the adults told them. A child's view of those months is something no textbook holds.
What is your happiest memory from before the war?
Why ask it
A summer by a river, a grandfather's workshop, a new pair of shoes. Asking for it tells the survivor you want the whole life and not only the worst years, and for a relative recording the story it is often the part nobody in the family has heard.
What did you want to be when you grew up?
Why ask it
Almost anyone speaking today was a child or a teenager then, with plans a classroom will recognize. Hold on to the answer and ask near the end whether they got to do it, or what they did instead.
What food do you remember from holidays at home, and who cooked it?
Why ask it
The dish brings along the person who made it and everyone who sat at the table. If a relative is doing the asking, find out whether the recipe survived and offer to write it down together.
Who were your neighbors, and how did your family get along with them?
Why ask it
It sounds like small talk, and it sets up some of the hardest parts of the story, because neighbors later helped, looked away or did worse. Ask it plainly here and let the survivor decide whether to return to those people.
What language did you speak at home, and do you still use it?
Why ask it
Many survivors grew up between two or three languages, such as Yiddish, Polish, Hungarian, German, Ladino or Romani. Ask for a phrase a parent liked to say and what it means. Some will tell you there is a language they no longer speak, and the reason is theirs to give or keep.
The war years
Where were you during the war years, and who was with you?
Why ask it
Do not assume a camp. Survivors lived through ghettos, hiding places, false identities, forests, flight to other countries and camps of different kinds, sometimes several of these in turn. In a classroom, a map on the wall lets everyone follow the route as it is described.
What happened on the day you had to leave your home?
Why ask it
Leaving meant different things: an order to move into a ghetto, a deportation, an escape at night, a goodbye at a station before a children's transport. Let them say which it was, then ask only about small things, such as what they were told to pack, and stop there unless they go on.
Was there one thing you managed to keep through all of it?
Why ask it
If the object is in the room, a photograph or a spoon or a page of a parent's handwriting, ask to hear how it was kept and do not reach for it unless it is offered. Plenty of people came out with nothing, and that answer deserves a moment of quiet.
Can you describe one day, from waking to sleeping, in the place where you were held or hidden?
Why ask it
Asking about routine lets the survivor choose how much to show: the hour they woke, the work, the count, the long hours of keeping silent in a cellar or an attic. Take the level of detail they give as the limit, and do not ask for more.
What did you eat, and how did you get hold of food?
Why ask it
Hunger runs through a great many testimonies, and the answer is usually about people as much as food: who shared, who traded, who went without so a child could eat. It is a question a younger student can manage. Never follow it by asking what the worst thing they ate was.
Who helped you, and what were they risking?
Why ask it
A farmer, a nun, a stranger with a spare room, another prisoner with half a ration: ask for the helper's name and whether the two of them ever met again. If the answer is that nobody helped, do not go looking for a rescuer to make the story easier to hear.
How did news reach you, and how much did you know about what was happening elsewhere?
Why ask it
The answer usually shows how little anyone could know or check, whether it came by rumor, a smuggled newspaper or a radio behind a wall. That in turn answers something students often carry in with them: why families did not simply leave.
Did you see people resist, in large ways or small ones?
Why ask it
Resistance covered more than armed revolt: a secret school, a diary, a shared crust, a prayer said under the breath. This is the respectful form of a question that should never be put as 'why did nobody fight back', which blames the people it is asked of.
Were you able to mark a holiday or a birthday in that time?
Why ask it
You may hear about a candle improvised from scraps, a song whispered, a date counted on fingers. Some will say the days had no names at all. Both answers tell you what was taken besides safety, and neither needs a comment from you.
What were you most afraid of at the time?
Why ask it
Children ask this outright, and a survivor who visits schools has usually found a way to answer it for young listeners. The fear named is often being separated from someone, and not the thing an adult would guess. Let the answer end where it ends.
Was there a moment when luck or one small decision made the difference?
Why ask it
This is a better question than 'how did you survive', which can sound as if those who died did something wrong. Many survivors say plainly that it was chance, so do not reply that they were strong or that it was meant to be.
What kept you going from one day to the next?
Why ask it
A sister to look after, a promise made to a parent or simply the next piece of bread are the usual kinds of answer. Be ready for the survivor who rejects the question, saying there was no choice in it, and do not argue them into a braver version.
Liberation
Where were you when you understood the war was over for you?
Why ask it
For some it was soldiers at a gate, for others a door opened on a hiding place, an empty guard post or news heard in another country. It was not always one day. Ask what they saw first and who was standing beside them.
What did you feel in those first days of freedom?
Why ask it
Resist supplying the word happy. Survivors describe illness, numbness, fear of what they would find and sometimes joy, often all in one week. If the answer is 'nothing', write that down as it was said.
Who was the first person to treat you kindly afterwards?
Why ask it
These stories tend to come easily: a soldier who handed over his rations, a nurse, a woman at a railway station with a bowl of soup. Place the question between two heavier ones, because it gives a class or a family something warm to hold.
Where did you go first, and how did you get there?
Why ask it
The route is rarely straight: a walk toward home, a ride on the roof of a train, weeks in a hospital bed, months or years in a displaced persons camp. Ask who traveled with them, because people who met on those roads sometimes stayed in each other's lives for good.
Did you go back to your home town after the war, and what did you find?
Why ask it
Be ready for a hard answer: strangers living in the house, one neighbor who had kept a box of photographs, or a decision never to go near the place. A short 'no' is complete, so move to the next question without asking why.
How did you learn who else in your family was alive?
Why ask it
Ask this only when the survivor has already spoken about looking for family. Names were found on posted lists, through tracing services, by word of mouth and by waiting at stations. When the answer is that nobody came, say nothing for a while and let them choose the next sentence.
What was the first thing that felt normal again?
Why ask it
This one suits a young audience. The answer is small, such as a bed with sheets, a meal eaten slowly or a desk in a classroom, and it often gets a smile from the survivor, which a long session needs.
Rebuilding
How did you come to live in the country where you settled?
Why ask it
Few survivors picked a country off a map. The answer tends to turn on a relative who signed papers, a visa that came through after a long wait or a ship to wherever would take them, and the rules differed by country and by year, so ask how it worked in their case.
What was hardest about starting over in a new place, and who made it easier?
Why ask it
Expect a new language, work far below what they had hoped for, and being young among people who did not want to hear about it. The second half usually brings a name: a teacher, an employer, a landlady, an aunt. Ask what that person actually did.
How did you meet the person you married?
Why ask it
A warm question, and one many survivors enjoy, though check the biography first so you know it applies. Ask who the children were named for, since the names often honor relatives who were lost.
What from your first home did you carry into the one you made?
Why ask it
For a grandchild this can be the most useful answer on the recording, because it explains things the family already does without knowing where they came from. It may be a recipe, a melody, a way of setting the table or a saying of their mother's.
When did you first tell your story, and what made you begin?
Why ask it
Plenty of survivors said little for decades, sometimes because the first people they told did not want to listen. The start is often a grandchild's school project, a retirement or a denier in the news. Knowing it tells you what this conversation costs them.
What did you tell your own children, and when?
Why ask it
If you are the child or grandchild, this one is about your own house, so be ready to hear why you were not told. Parents who said nothing often explain it as protecting their children, and parents who told everything say the same. Listen without defending or blaming anyone.
How did what you lived through change what you believe?
Why ask it
Put openly like this, the question leaves room for faith that grew, faith that ended and an argument with God that is still going, where 'do you still believe in God?' allows only a yes or a no. Ask it once, and keep your own beliefs and any wish for a hopeful ending out of it.
What brings those years back to you now?
Why ask it
The answer can be something ordinary, such as a train whistle, a barking dog or bread left on a plate, or a plain 'every day'. It is a gentler way in than asking about nightmares, which puts a survivor's health on show in front of a room. Do not go on to ask how they cope; that is theirs to offer.
What are you proudest of in the life you built?
Why ask it
The question lets a class go home having met a whole person. Listen for a trade learned from nothing, a degree finished late or a table crowded with grandchildren, and note that some survivors call their family their answer to what was done to them.
Remembering
What do you want young people to understand about what happened?
Why ask it
For many survivors who visit schools this is the question they came to answer, so leave time for it and do not let the bell cut it off. Write the reply down as closely as you can and read it back to check you have it right.
What do you say to people who claim it never happened?
Why ask it
Ask for their words and not for a debate. A teacher should prepare the class beforehand so that no student repeats a denier's claim and waits for the survivor to disprove it. The answer is often short, along the lines of 'I was there'.
How do you think about forgiveness?
Why ask it
Survivors disagree with each other sharply here: one has forgiven, another says forgiveness is not hers to give on behalf of the dead, a third separates those who did it from their grandchildren. Worded this openly, the question does not push anyone toward the comforting answer.
How do you feel now about the country you were born in, and about Germany?
Why ask it
Students often want to ask 'do you hate the Germans?', which demands a verdict on a whole people. This version leaves room for a feeling that has changed over the years, and it keeps the birthplace apart from Germany, which for many survivors are two countries and two answers. You might hear of a refusal ever to return, of going back to speak in schools, or of keeping the language and nothing else.
Have you taken your children or grandchildren to see where you came from?
Why ask it
A return with family is its own story: the house that is still standing, the cemetery, the school that now has another name. If they have never gone, ask whether they would want the family to go without them one day, and take a plain 'no' as final.
When you look at the world now, what worries you and what gives you hope?
Why ask it
Survivors often tie their story to something in the present, and it is their right to choose what, including whether they think it could happen again. Listen without steering it toward your own politics. Ask for both halves, because a room of students should not leave with only the worry.
What can someone my age do when they see a person being singled out?
Why ask it
It asks for an action in place of a moral, and the answers tend to be ones a student can use on Monday: say something, sit beside them, refuse to laugh, tell an adult. A teacher can turn the reply into something the class agrees to do.
Whose name would you like us to remember after today?
Why ask it
Ask how the name is spelled and say it back, so that it leaves the room written correctly. It could belong to a parent, a little brother, a friend from the barracks or the person who hid them, and whether to tell how that person's story ended is the survivor's choice.
What is it like for you to tell this to a room of strangers?
Why ask it
Telling it again and again can take something from the teller, and few audiences ask. The answer shows a class how to say thank you properly, and shows a relative when to stop for the day.
How would you like your story to be told when you can no longer tell it?
Why ask it
More natural from a relative than from a student. It opens practical matters: whether there is a recording, who should have copies, what they want left in and left out. If a museum or an archive is involved, ask how it handles family testimony, since each has its own process.
What have I not asked that you want people to know?
Why ask it
Save it for last and then wait longer than feels comfortable. Survivors who have told the story many times sometimes add here the one thing they have never fitted into the talk, and it should be the last thing recorded that day.
Listening to a survivor: before, during and after the questions
Practical guidance for the conversation itself
Before the visit or the recording
Learn the outline first
Read whatever biography the school, museum or speakers' program sends, and find the places on a map. A question the introduction has already answered, such as where they were born, spends the survivor's energy on nothing. Keep the time for what only they can tell you.
Ask how questions are handled
Programs differ. Some collect questions in advance, some put a moderator between the audience and the speaker, and some survivors like to take whatever comes. Ask the organizer how it works there, offer your list beforehand in any case, and ask whether there are subjects the speaker does not take.
Prepare the room
A teacher should tell the class beforehand which questions are not to be asked, that phones stay away and that nobody leaves in the middle of an answer. Arrange water, a comfortable chair and a break. Find out from the organizer whether photographs or recording are allowed before anyone lifts a phone.
If you are recording a relative
Ask plainly whether they want to do this and who may hear the recording afterwards. Plan several short sittings over one long one, test the recorder before you begin, and bring any old photographs you can find. Start with Before the war on the first day, even if it is the war you most want to hear about.
Choose a few questions
A school session may leave room for ten questions from the whole class. Have each student pick one and write a second in case theirs is asked first. When the talk itself has already told the story, most of what is still worth asking sits under Rebuilding and Remembering.
What to leave for the survivor to raise
How people died
Do not ask how a parent, a brother or a friend was killed, or what the survivor saw done. If it belongs to the account they have chosen to give, you will hear it. A question that asks for it turns testimony into a request for the worst moment.
The number and other marks
Never ask to see a tattooed number or a scar, and do not stare if one is visible. Many survivors have no number: tattooing prisoners was a practice of the Auschwitz camp complex and not of the camp system as a whole, and a great many survivors were never in a camp at all. So the question can be wrong as well as intrusive.
Questions that carry a verdict
'Why did you not leave?', 'Why did nobody fight back?' and 'Did you do anything you regret in order to survive?' all put the survivor on trial. The questions about news and about resistance under The war years cover the same ground without blame.
Comparisons
Leave films, novels and present-day politics out of your questions unless the survivor brings them in. Asking whether a famous film got it right, or whether some current event is 'the same thing', asks them to rule on someone else's story when they came to tell their own.
Testing the account
A person describing childhood events from many decades back may give a date or a figure that differs from the record. Do not correct it in the room. Note it, check it afterwards against a museum or archive source, and remember that what they saw and felt is the testimony.
How to listen
Let silence stand
A pause is usually the survivor deciding how to say something, or whether to. Count slowly to ten before you speak. If the pause ends with 'I would rather not', say 'of course' and go on to an easier question.
Do not finish the sentence
Phrases such as 'you must have been terrified' or 'I can imagine' put your words in place of theirs. A nod, 'thank you for telling us' or simply the next question is enough.
If they become upset
Stop asking and wait. Offer water or a break, and ask whether they would like to go on, stop for today or move to a different part of the story. Follow whatever they choose. At a public event let the organizer or moderator take the lead, since they usually know the speaker.
Follow their order
The groups run in the order of a life, and a survivor may not tell it that way. If an answer about school jumps ahead to a train platform, stay with them and return to the list later. Skip any question the story has already answered.
One short question each
In a question and answer session, ask one thing in one sentence and sit down. Do not open with your own family's story or your feelings about the talk. Those belong in a thank-you note.
Write down names
Places, people and dates are the part of testimony most easily lost. Note them as you hear them and check the spellings at the end, when it will not interrupt.
After the conversation
Thank them for something specific
Tell the survivor, in a sentence, one thing you will remember. A class can send letters that each name a moment from the talk, which says more than a card signed by everyone.
Look after the recording
Label a family recording with the date, the names of everyone speaking and the places mentioned, and keep more than one copy. Ask your relative before sharing any of it outside the family. If you would like a museum or an archive to keep it, ask that institution what it accepts and what permissions it needs, because each sets its own terms.
Working from recorded testimony
When the survivor is on film and cannot be asked, use the list as a listening guide. Note the minute at which each question is answered and mark the ones the recording never reaches, then talk about those gaps afterwards. Some museums also offer recorded testimony that responds to spoken questions, so ask what is available where you are.
Give students time afterwards
Do not go straight on to the next lesson. Ask each student to write down one sentence they heard and one question they still have, and talk those through the following day, when the class has had a night to think.