I Did Not Interview the Dead

David P. Boder

1949

Introduction

A few days before the surrender of Germany, General Dwight D. Eisenhower, then Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces, sent out a call to American newspaper editors which may be paraphrased as “Come and see for yourselves.” Eisenhower, preoccupied as he must have been with unprecedented responsibilities, found time to reflect upon the…

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Creator Bio

David P. Boder

1886–1961

A pioneer in the recording of survivor testimony, Latvian-born David P. Boder interviewed more than one hundred Holocaust survivors in war-shattered Europe in 1946. Toting around a wire recorder, he went from country to country, finding the traumatized victims of the war and talking to them in their own languages (Boder spoke seven). He returned to the United States with over 120 hours of recordings, which became I Did Not Interview the Dead, a collection of transcripts. A psychologist by profession, and drawn to disasters, both natural and man-made, Boder continued interviewing victims after the 1940s.

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