Mauthausen

Mauthausen-Studien 18: Piotr Filipkowski

‘Oral History und der Krieg. Die Erfahrung des Konzentrationslagers in biografischen Erzählungen polnischer Überlebender’ (available in English as: ‘Oral History and the War: The Nazi Concentration Camp Experience in a Biographical-Narrative Perspective’) by Piotr Filipkowski was published as Volume 18 of the series ‘Mauthausen-Studien’.

This study, in which Piotr Filipkowski reworks his doctoral thesis, was first published in Poland in 2010 and in English in 2019. ForVolume 18 of the series ‘Mauthausen-Studien’ this ground-breaking work on oral history has been translated into German for the first time.

The author analyses the camp experiences of Polish survivors from the perspective of autobiographical narrative. The majority of the interviews with survivors of the Mauthausen-Gusen concentration camp complex were recorded in the years 2001-2003 as part of the Mauthausen Survivors Documentation Project.

Historian and sociologist Piotr Filipkowski is a researcher at the Institute of Sociology and Philosophy at the Polish Academy of Sciences. As member of the project team, he conducted over 30 interviews with Polish survivors. His experiences form part of the in-depth analysis of the memories narrated by survivors. By including considerations of cultural and social framing, the study builds up a multi-layered picture of individual Polish camp experiences.

Available from the Mauthausen Memorial Book Shop and via the website of the new academic press.