PD Dr. Franka Maubach’s Hamburg Lecture available on radio DFL Nova “Hörsaal”
In 1946, over a hundred displaced persons (DPs) – survivors of Nazi persecution and murder – were interviewed by American psychologist David P. Boder. The testimonies of these often very young people are among the earliest audio recordings of concentration camp survivors. They describe the conditions of imprisonment in the camps in frightening detail, but also try to orient themselves in space and time. They tell of existential uncertainty – about their own lives and the whereabouts of their relatives. This fundamental powerlessness and disorientation are combined in their stories with attempts to regain the ability to act and, ultimately, their own lives.
PD Dr. Franka Maubach presented her research on David P. Boder's interviews in the public lecture series “War’s End in Europe 1945: Events, Experiences, Interpretations”, organized jointly by the IGdJ, the Forschungsstelle für Zeitgeschichte in Hamburg, and the Department of German History at Universität Hamburg. Her talk analysed the DPs’ experiences of survival, thus illuminating the end of the war from the existentially ambivalent perspective of Holocaust victims and refugees at the end of the war.
22 January 2026 18:00 the lecture will be available as a podcast on radio DLF Nova’s Hörsaal programme.