Survivors speak across the years
- Alumna in Australia translates Holocaust testimonies
Alumna and former Wits lecturer Freda Hodge (BA Hons 1970) has translated 30 Holocaust testimonies which were not previously available in English. The collection, Tragedy and Triumph: Early Testimonies of Jewish Survivors of World War II, has been published by Monash University Press in Melbourne, Australia.
Accounts like these have a particular historical value owing to their immediacy. They were taken from survivors in Germany just after the war and first published between 1946 and 1948 in the Yiddish journal Fun Letzten Khurben.
Freda explains: “Because these testimonies were written so soon after the end of World War II, they are stark, harrowing, vividly portraying the details of the survivors’ experiences. Time had not yet taken its toll on the memories of the survivors. The more time passes, the more the person being interviewed may have been influenced by outside forces such as the media, other people’s stories, and honest confusion. At times there may even be an attempt at self-aggrandisement or the desire to hide certain facts that may reflect badly on the survivor. This is seldom the case when the testimony is given soon after the events.”
She says that in working on the translations, she learned more about “the amazing resilience of human beings, and that kindness can come from the most unexpected places or people”.
She hopes that these additions to the body of Holocaust evidence in English will counter denialism, help stop “the spread of unreasoning hatred” and be useful to scholars. The method and form used in recording the accounts could also be a model for other genocide or conflict testimonies.
“People’s stories can have a greater emotional effect on the individual reader or listener than historians’ carefully crafted presentations,” she notes.
Freda continues to serve as an interviewer for the Holocaust Centre in Melbourne, collecting testimonies from survivors and their families. She is also working on a second book focusing on survivors who settled in Melbourne.
Two of the survivors in Tragedy and Triumph eventually emigrated to South Africa: the journalist Levi Shalit and the poet David Wolpe.
Freda’s story
Freda herself was born in Johannesburg and grew up here. She studied English literature at Wits University and lectured in the English Department from 1969 to 1979 (when her married name was Kilov).
She later obtained a Master’s degree in linguistics from the University of Stellenbosch and taught at the University of Transkei. Her second husband, Dr Norman Hodge, was also an academic at Wits and Unitra. They emigrated to Australia in 1991 for family reasons and she took up Jewish Studies at Monash University.
In Australia she also taught migrant and refugee children originating from China, Bosnia, Switzerland, Serbia, the Philippines, Thailand, Denmark and Africa. “It was a most fulfilling and exciting time for me. I learned how to help them to overcome their hostilities, misunderstandings and suspicions, and to weld the older ones into a cohesive, happy class. I learned which activities contributed positively to their outcomes and which were divisive. It was a great eye-opener for me, but perhaps the most important point was that ignorance is potentially the worst enemy of peace. Once the students started to learn about each other’s cultures and faiths, lifestyles and beliefs, the barriers between them broke down and gave way to close friendships. Visiting each other’s homes was a great ice breaker too.”
Freda’s sons Errol (BDS 1977) and Gary (MBBCh 1980) Kilov are Witsies, as is her daughter-in-law Andrea Kilov (Greenstein) (BA Sp&HT 1984). They all live in Australia.