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Adam Lewinski
Documenting Jewish Adelaide
In July I attended a workshop at the Sydney Jewish Museum on contemporary
issues related to Jewish and Holocaust Museums in Australia. It was a forum
where museum professionals exchanged experiences and discussed perceptions
about the topic. There were some interesting views about the uniqueness and
universality of the Holocaust and how it relates to genocide studies.
Particularly interesting was a talk about institutionalised memory of the
Holocaust and the differences between museum exhibits of remembrance in
Australia, Israel and the United States.
There was some surprise about the existence of the Adelaide Jewish Museum,
until it was explained that the Museum exists, but only in virtual reality.
Or, as my husband refers to it, we are a Ghetto in Cyberspace. The ongoing
generosity of Allen Bolaffi, the Adelaide Jewish Museums benefactor,
afforded me the opportunity to attend this conference.
Melbourne's Holocaust Centre has 1,200 video testimonies documenting the
stories of Melbourne's survivors. The Adelaide Jewish Museum is pursuing
the goal of documenting the stories of our Holocaust survivors, and given
the scale of our community, this task is somewhat more manageable. I am
still relying on community members to make them known to me so that I can
continue to record experiences and eyewitness accounts of the Holocaust.
Undocumented oral testimonies would otherwise be lost in the face of natural
attrition.
There are varied ways to approach the process of interviewing a Holocaust
survivor. Having first researched the topic, an interviewer could go
prepared with a list of questions to which responses are sought. One could
adapt, or follow standard questionnaires that have already been drawn up by
oral historians for just this purpose. In these questionnaires, names,
places and dates are as important as the anecdotes of the person's
experiences. If you've listened to a typical four-hour Shoah Foundation
testimony you will know what I mean. They want to know everything, from
Where was your father born to What was your relationship with him like, to
Describe your house and Describe your school. Sometimes interviewers will
prod for information, asking personal and intimate questions.
The approach that feels appropriate for me at this point is to assume the
role of passive listener, with occasional prompts for clarification where
necessary. I prefer to allow the speaker to talk freely, uninterrupted, and
express the story of his or her life in the way they wish to see it
recorded. I am mindful that asking questions, which require the
recollection of painful memories, might induce distress.
This more informal and anecdotal approach is the one I opted for when
meeting with Adam Lewin in May 2003. I am indebted to Joan and Ivor Lee for
arranging this meeting and accompanying me to it. Later, while transcribing
the recorded interview, I discovered that my methodology was faulty, and I
had to make numerous phone calls to clarify points and to check details.
I'll be reviewing my modus operandi for future interviews.
Whereas some are more outspoken about their experiences, Adam Lewin's story
has not yet been told publicly. He and his brother were amongst the first
Holocaust survivors to come to Adelaide, and right from the beginning, in
this country where he found freedom from persecution, he felt it was
necessary to put the past behind him and to focus on the future.
He has, however, two visible reminders that surviving the Holocaust is still
a reality. The numbers 179192 are tattooed on his left arm, the notorious
dehumanising numbering system used in Auschwitz, and, on the same hand, his
baby finger is permanently pulled inwards, distorted from an accident while
working as a forced labourer. This is the physical evidence of the
hardships he suffered during the war; other scars run deeper, less visibly.
When he immigrated to Australia, doctors said that he could easily have his
finger straightened, but he chose to leave it as it is, a visible reminder
of what he had been through.
Adam Lewinski was born in Bendzin, Poland, in 1918. He was 21 years old
when he was sent to a transit camp in Poland. From there he was sent to 5
or 6 different concentration camps. He remembers Auschwitz, Blechhammer,
Gross-Rosen and Dachau, miraculously surviving these camps as a forced
labourer.
"Hard work, that's how I survived". Three Lewinski brothers survived the
war, but his sister Regina, brother Nathan, and his mother and father
perished. You will soon be able to read more about his story when it is
loaded onto the Adelaide Jewish Museum website.
I'll end this newsletter as I have many others: please contact me with any
information that you think will be of interest to the Museum in its aim of
documenting Jewish Adelaide, now and in the past.
Roslyn Sugarman, Curator Adelaide Jewish Museum
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