A newspaper article on the Voices of the Holocaust project appeared in the Daily Herald on Friday, April 20th. The article, “Help needed to preserve decaying voices of history,” by Sarah Long, recounts how IIT professor Dr. David Boder traveled to Europe in the years immediately following WWII to record the stories of Holocaust survivors in displaced-persons camps. To document the interviews, Boder used a new magnetic wire recording device developed by Marvin Camras, an electrical engineer at IIT. The story also features comments by Dean of Libraries Christopher Stewart, who discusses the Galvin Library’s efforts to preserve these materials and make them available online at http://voices.iit.edu.

To listen to Sarah Long’s podcast interview (”Longshots #42″) with Dean of Libraries Christopher Stewart, click here.

Voices of the Holocaust, a web site created and maintained by Galvin Library, was featured recently on Chicago’s Fox 32 newscast. The Voices site highlights the work of Dr. David Boder, who at the time of the 1946 interviews was Head of the Psychology Department at Lewis Institute, which merged with Armour Institute to become IIT. Dr. Boder used a newly developed wire recording device, invented by IIT’s Marvin Camras to record his interviews, which took place in France, Italy, Germany and Switzerland with persons displaced by World War II.

Dean of Libraries Christopher Stewart and Institute of Psychology Director Dr. Ellen Mitchell were featured in the piece, which tells the story of how Dr. Boder’s interviews and wire recordings were discovered. The story also contains numerous clips from the audio recordings of the interviews, glimpses of the orginal wire recording devices and spools, as well as archival film footage of Holocaust victims.

Watch the newscast video (above), visit the site, or read more about Boder’s work in the 1949 book I Did Not Interview the Dead (held in Galvin Library’s collection) to learn more.

Dean of Libraries Christopher Stewart and Dr. Ellen Mitchell, Director of IIT’s Institute of Psychology, were interviewed and photographed by Chicago Tribune staff reporter Ron Grossman for a story featured on the front page of the January 14^th Sunday edition. The article highlighted Dr. David Boder’s 1946 interviews with displaced persons after WWII in Europe. At the time, Dr. Boder was Head of the Psychology Department at Lewis Institute, which merged with Armour Institute to become IIT. Visit the Voices of the Holocaust site or read the article.