Slovak Ethnologist Recalls Landmark Holocaust Survivor Research That Broke Decades of Silence

A pioneering oral history project conducted in Slovakia in the 1990s revealed the depth of trauma carried by Holocaust survivors — many of whom spoke about their wartime experiences for the first time during the research. Ethnologist Peter Salner, together with colleagues, conducted interviews with 148 Holocaust survivors in Slovakia between 1995 and 1997, in what was the first study of its kind in the country. The project was initiated by Yale University in the United States as part of a broader effort to document survivor testimonies. Salner has reflected on the profound impact the research had on his own understanding of the Holocaust. Despite believing he was well-informed on the subject before the project began, he said that after the first interviews he realized he had known almost nothing. The testimonies revealed that many survivors had never previously spoken publicly — or at all — about what they had endured, underscoring how deeply suppressed the trauma remained decades after World War II. The Holocaust in Slovakia was a particularly dark chapter in the country's history. During the wartime Slovak State, a Nazi-allied regime, more than 70,000 Slovak Jews were deported, the vast majority to Nazi extermination camps where they perished. The Yale-initiated project, known internationally as the Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies, sought to preserve survivor accounts before they were lost to time. Salner's work helped bring that effort to Slovakia, creating a historical record that had not previously existed in the country.