- Summary
- Videotape testimony of Norman M., a prize-winning author, who was born in Burdujeni, Romania, a section of Suceava, in 1936, an only child. He recounts moving to Ițcani; few memories prior to deportation with his parents and other relatives to Transnistria in October 1941; starvation and extreme cold; their Romanian foster child bringing them food; his maternal grandparents' deaths the first winter; attending school for about eighteen months; their return to Fălticeni, Rădăuți, then Suceava in 1945; resuming his education; expressing his desire to emigrate in 1947; his father's refusal based on his strong identification with Bukovina; completing university as an engineer, despite his love of literature; working as an engineer; marriage in 1968; visiting relatives in Israel in 1976; beginning to publish; attacks by the press in 1981 for his anti-communist perspective; living in Germany in 1986-1987 for about a year; moving to the United States in 1988; his mother's death in Suceava; his father's emigration to Israel in 1989; attacks by the Romanian press in 1992 and 1998; and his faculty position at Bard College. Mr. M. discusses the influence of many writers and critics on his work; his childhood memories marked by suffering; his experiences in Transnistria informing his writing, citing several of his books; his identity as a Romanian first, then as a Jew; issues with translations of his work; and unresolved moral issues for nations arising from the Holocaust.
- Author/Creator
- M., Norman, 1936-
- Published
- New York, N. Y. : Words & Images, 1995
- Interview Date
- February 12, 1998.
- Locale
- Romania
Suceava (Romania)
Burdujeni (Romania)
Ițcani (Suceava, Romania)
Bukovina (Romania and Ukraine)
Transnistria (Ukraine : Territory under German and Romanian occupation, 1941-1944)
Fălticeni (Romania)
Rădăuți (Romania)
- Cite As
- Norman M. Holocaust Testimony (HVT-4187). Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies, Yale University Library.
- Notes
-
This testimony is in Romanian.
Related publication: October, eight o'clock / Norman Manea ; translated by Cornelia Golna ... [et al.]. -- New York : Grove Weidenfeld, c1992.
Related publication: Cartea Fiulu / Norman Manea. -- Bucharest : Mihai Eminescu, c.1976.
Related publication: The black envelope / Norman Manea ; translated from the Romanian by Patrick Camiller. -- New York : Farrar, Strauss and Giroux, c1995.
Due to the fact that this testimony contains significant dialogue between the witness and the interviewer, two versions were produced at the time of the taping. One version has the camera focused solely on the witness; the second has two cameras alternating between the witness and the interviewer.
