The Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library Mondays at Beinecke series presents
Stephen Naron and Konstanze Kunst, Beinecke Library Curators:
“In the First Person .”
A conversation with curators Stephen Naron and Konstanze Kunst about the Beinecke exhibition, “In the First Person.” The exhibition, which closes on January 28, marks the forty-fifth anniversary of the first videotaping by the Holocaust Survivors Film Project, a grassroots New Haven community initiative that evolved into the Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies. “In the First Person” is the first large-scale public exhibition of footage from this groundbreaking collection. Powerful excerpts from nineteen video testimonies presents the experiences of survivors and witnesses to the atrocities and genocide committed by Nazi Germany and its collaborators.
These videos are presented alongside a display of books, pamphlets, manuscripts, documents, and other items from the collections of Yale Library that presents a history of Jewish efforts to document anti-Jewish persecution by means of eyewitness accounts, from the Kishinev Pogrom of 1903 through the Holocaust and its aftermath. The exhibition confronts the myth that survivors were silent about their experiences in the immediate post–World War II period and provides further context for understanding the Fortunoff Archive’s historical significance and impact.
Naron and Kunst will reflect on the exhibition and be in conversation with Tubyez Cropper, community engagement program manager at Beinecke.