Nebraska Holocaust Survivor & WWII Veteran Network and Educational Portal
Aila Ganic and Ethan Tylski
Author
03/29/2021
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Description
The Nebraska Holocaust Survivor & WWII Veteran Network and Educational Portal project
will establish a dynamic, public platform to centralize access to the history of Nebraska
Holocaust survivors and WWII liberators of Nazi camps through a curated collection of digital stories.
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- [00:00:00.780]Hi, and welcome to our presentation about our research,
- [00:00:03.690]the Nebraska Stories of Humanity: Holocaust Survivors,
- [00:00:06.390]and World War II Veterans.
- [00:00:08.190]We are honored to take this opportunity to share with you our work today.
- [00:00:11.690]My name is Aila Ganic, and I'm a junior political science major at the
- [00:00:15.080]University. I was born and raised in Lincoln, Nebraska.
- [00:00:18.440]And following graduation,
- [00:00:19.700]I'm hoping to attend law school in order to work in public policy,
- [00:00:23.120]civil rights law or environmental law.
- [00:00:25.520]I was introduced to this UCARE project through my position at the Teaching,
- [00:00:29.210]Learning and Teacher Education office.
- [00:00:32.420]Hi, my name is Ethan Tylski, and I'm a junior history major.
- [00:00:35.630]I was born in Wichita, Kansas, but grew up in Omaha, Nebraska. Mrs.
- [00:00:39.210]Dotan asked me to participate in her research after I was a student in her
- [00:00:42.590]School and Society Education course. After I graduate,
- [00:00:45.800]I hope to either join the Peace Corps or the AmeriCorps. Upon my return to
- [00:00:49.700]Nebraska, I think I will either go into law or continue further into history in
- [00:00:53.390]post-grad.
- [00:00:55.340]There are five primary goals that this research hopes to achieve. Creating a hub
- [00:01:00.140]for firsthand experiences,
- [00:01:02.090]creating a centralized space where stories can be accessed,
- [00:01:05.420]sharing stories of Nebraska
- [00:01:06.770]Holocaust survivors and World War II veterans, establishing a dynamic platform to
- [00:01:11.720]grow over time, and the one that pertains most to Ethan and I as students,
- [00:01:16.160]the last goal is utilizing student research skills from our disciplinary
- [00:01:20.210]scholarship to advance and impact the material for public use.
- [00:01:25.760]Our project also meets the NU 2025 strategic research aim of using
- [00:01:30.290]interdisciplinary skills. We also have multiple stakeholders,
- [00:01:33.890]including several community organizations and University departments.
- [00:01:38.870]Digital humanities bring along a unique form of methodology.
- [00:01:42.770]So the digital humanities provide the space to formulate a collaboration of
- [00:01:46.670]cross disciplinary study to bring social science research material to a new
- [00:01:51.080]level through digital resources.
- [00:01:53.600]So bearing witness through digital access allows the user
- [00:01:56.780]the privilege of hearing how injustice and hate affected one individual,
- [00:02:01.580]yet provides a broader awareness of the historic tragedy.
- [00:02:05.240]So teamwork has been crucial in our methodology as we have been collaborating
- [00:02:09.260]very close with the UNL Center for Digital Humanities.
- [00:02:13.940]So we use various tools to collect and share material.
- [00:02:17.810]In order to keep track of the materials we collect,
- [00:02:20.600]we assign a specific name that correlates to the person
- [00:02:23.540]It is connected to, save documents in Box and track the documents through Google
- [00:02:28.130]Sheets. Once documents are saved to Box and Google Sheets,
- [00:02:33.200]Ethan and I use Github to share our coding work with others and do the
- [00:02:37.760]actual transcribing and encoding through the Oxygen XML editor.
- [00:02:42.230]Various types of documents require different coding of metadata,
- [00:02:45.950]so this part of the process requires lots of precision.
- [00:02:49.760]The specific Holocaust survivor I'm researching is Bea Karp.
- [00:02:54.170]My overall goal for this research is identifying how to share Bea's story in a way
- [00:02:58.790]that is accurate and highlights the influence she had on our Nebraska community.
- [00:03:03.520]So I've been compiling all stories, documents, books, videos, images,
- [00:03:07.810]that detail Bea's life
- [00:03:09.400]through resources provided by the University of Nebraska Lincoln,
- [00:03:13.150]various newspapers and other databases of historical material.
- [00:03:17.740]I've been recording and saving this material in Google Sheets and Box in order
- [00:03:22.060]to keep an account of all aggregated documents and images.
- [00:03:26.050]I've been coding the metadata and transcribing this material through the use of
- [00:03:29.650]Github and Oxygen. And on the right here,
- [00:03:32.080]you can see one of these emigration forms and these are the kinds of historical
- [00:03:36.250]documents that I've been trying to find and save.
- [00:03:39.730]And then I've also been transcribing Bea's testimonies, and she has given many of
- [00:03:44.260]them while she has been living in the United States.
- [00:03:48.000]Clarence Williams was one of the liberators in the Dachau concentration camp
- [00:03:51.570]that I am researching for my part of the project.
- [00:03:54.210]Clarence Williams was a combat medic in the 122nd Medical Battalion of the
- [00:03:58.380]famous 42nd Rainbow Division in World War II. Williams left behind a plethora
- [00:04:03.300]of primary documents for us to analyze. Not only are all of his war letters
- [00:04:07.290]well-preserved,
- [00:04:08.370]but he also took incredible photographs of his wartime experience that have
- [00:04:11.670]never been seen before. The bulk of my research includes transcribing documents,
- [00:04:15.750]such as letters, and coding their contents in XML and cataloging important
- [00:04:20.280]places, people, and groups that Clarence encountered. Mrs.
- [00:04:23.520]Dotan and I have also recently gotten into contact with Clarence's son, Tom,
- [00:04:27.570]who is willing to meet with us and discuss his father's legacy in greater
- [00:04:30.660]detail. And there he is right on the right.
- [00:04:36.300]Although our research is finally taking shape in the form of an unofficial
- [00:04:39.390]website, we still have a lot of work to do.
- [00:04:41.790]We are now in the early stages of developing the searchable database that will
- [00:04:45.270]include all of the primary sources
- [00:04:47.010]we have collected, a map to trace the journey of our featured individuals, and a
- [00:04:51.210]network analysis page that will allow our website viewers to trace connections
- [00:04:54.810]between individuals, places, and events.
- [00:04:57.450]The goal of our project is to make the history of the Holocaust more accessible,
- [00:05:01.020]meaningful, and relevant to Nebraskans by highlighting personal narratives.
- [00:05:05.190]We hope that by making this resource,
- [00:05:07.110]we will be creating an invaluable asset for educators, students, local leaders,
- [00:05:11.250]and historians
- [00:05:12.060]to better understand the ramifications of the Holocaust and the importance of
- [00:05:15.690]preventing future genocide.
- [00:05:17.490]We still have quite a ways to go before our project is complete,
- [00:05:20.370]but it has been incredibly exciting to watch our research finally take shape.
- [00:05:25.170]First and foremost,
- [00:05:26.070]we would like to thank the University of Nebraska for the opportunity to conduct
- [00:05:29.310]this research,
- [00:05:30.270]providing us with a generous grant for all of our work and being flexible
- [00:05:33.360]during these challenging times. We would also like to thank Laura Weakly,
- [00:05:37.170]the Encoding Specialist at the Center for Digital Research in the Humanities for
- [00:05:40.710]patiently training us interns
- [00:05:42.090]how doing encode metadata and always being available for any of our questions.
- [00:05:46.380]We would be remiss not to thank the families of the survivors who have been more
- [00:05:49.590]than happy to tell their relatives' stories and help us obtain important
- [00:05:53.160]documents, photos, and videos for our research.
- [00:05:56.520]Thank you also to the project PI Dr. Ari Kohen,
- [00:05:59.390]Director of the Norman and Bernice Harris Center for Judaic Studies at the
- [00:06:02.660]University of Nebraska Lincoln for sponsoring our research. Lastly,
- [00:06:07.130]we would also like to thank our advisor,
- [00:06:08.750]Beth Dotan, Doctoral Candidate and Research Assistant, in particular,
- [00:06:12.710]who invited us to work on her project and gave us this incredible opportunity
- [00:06:16.280]to put our skills and love of history and the social sciences to good use.
- [00:06:20.120]I think Aila and I both agree that this has been one of the most fulfilling
- [00:06:23.240]things we have done during our time here at the University.
- [00:06:27.460]What makes this project so special is how vital it is to our Nebraska community.
- [00:06:32.590]As Bea herself said,
- [00:06:34.390]"I tell this story in memory of my parents and the 6 million Jews that died.
- [00:06:38.980]I don't want the world to forget. It's a lesson to the future and the future is
- [00:06:43.180]in your hands. And it's up to you to make sure nothing like that will ever
- [00:06:47.590]happen again."
- [00:06:49.270]It's up to us to keep Bea's story alive and ensure Holocaust education is
- [00:06:53.830]accessible to all individuals.
- [00:06:56.590]Thank you so much for giving us a platform to share our research.
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