Concluded projects
of the Institute of Conflict Research
“Mauthausen Survivors Documentation Project” (MSDP)
| Project Management: | Professor Dr. Gerhard Botz |
| Project Team: | Mag.a Dr.in Helga Amesberger
Mag.a Katrin Auer Mag.a Dr.in Brigitte Halbmayr MMag.a Karin Stögner Christine Schindler |
| Concluded in | June 2003 |
The MSDP-project, which was financed by the Ministry of the Interior, was jointly carried out by the Institute of Conflict Research (IKF), the Ludwig-Boltzmann-Institute of Social Scientific History (Univ.Prof. Dr. Gerhard Botz) and the Documentation Archive of the Austrian Resistance. So-called regional coordinators with their interviewers were responsible for running the documentation project in 18 regions of Europe, Israel, South America, and the USA.
We aimed at a representative sample? of survivors or at least at a wide variety among different groups of survivors, in terms of nationality, age, time of imprisonment in the Mauthausen concentration camp, and gender. We particularly focused on collecting life stories of women and groups of survivors, who have been comparatively ignored by researchers and/or society (e.g. Romany and Sinti, so-called anti-social prisoners). For interviewing we used the method of life-story-interviews combined with a topic-centred interview guideline. In addition to this, an extensive questionnaire had to be answered.
Within the framework of MSDP, 838 audio-interviews were collected with survivors of the Mauthausen concentration camp and its subcamps. 91 of these interviews were also recorded on video. The interviews are indexed according to content and geographical region; the main biographical data, pictures, various artefacts dating from the time of persecution and the index have been entered into the MSDP-data base. The digital recordings of the interviews have been placed in the Archive of the Mauthausen Memorial at the Ministry of the Interior.
Most of the former inmates of the Mauthausen concentration camp came from non-German-speaking countries. With these interviews the national, cultural and religious diversity of the so-called prisoner society has been documented for the first time.
[GERMAN]
