Preliminary Programme

This paper outlines the goal and structure of the “Mauthausen Survivors Documentation Project”, the collective scholarly work having been done in 2002/03, and possible further research questions. It presents provisional findings from the more than 800 life story interviews focussing on the political, ethnical, religious and gender structure of the sample of victims of Nazi persecution from mostly 20 European regions/countries (Who, When, Why, Where, How long, Under what conditions? etc. has been persecuted and interned in Mauthausen). It tries to develop first insights in "peaks" and "keys" of the inmates' life stories; “peaks" (I. Sherbakova), meaning central events and experiences as reported by concentration camp inmates and "keys" considered as major lines of argumentation given to explain why an inmate came into the camp (has been persecuted) and why he/she came out (survived). It will also point at methodological problems and flaws in that kind of work. (Show less)