Mapping Holocaust Memoirs

April 8, 2015

During Spring term 2015, ENGL 261: Holocaust Memoirs: Reading, Writing, Mapping focused on the study of first-person literary and video Holocaust survivor accounts. After spending much of the semester approaching this subject up close, from a literary perspective-studying published survivor accounts by celebrated writers Elie Wiesel, Primo Levi, Charlotte Delbo and Ruth Kluger-we then approached the subject from a distance, by zooming out to consider the immense space and time of genocidal persecution, including the geographic landscapes, vast cities and countries, as well as the number of days, weeks and years involved.

To gain a sense of the scope and scale of the Nazi genocide, and place the individual accounts in a broader historical and geographical context, students in groups studied video testimonies from the USC Shoah Foundation Video History Archive, and learned to create interactive, layered geographic information systems (GIS) maps of each survivor's journey-a visual and geographical interpretation-using Esri Story Maps software.

Please join us for a public demonstration of the six story maps. This event is free and open to the public.

  • When: 4 - 5:30 p.m., April 10, 2015

  • Where: Hall of Letters 207, 209, and 211
    University of Redlands