Name: Sawyer Gersh

Social Justice Group: 2022-2023, Technology: Free Speech v Hate Speech Online

Date of Fieldwork: February 24, 2023

Name of Organization and person (people) with whom you met and their title(s):N/A

Type of Fieldwork: Interview

What I did and what I learned about my topic, activism, social justice work or civil and human rights work from this fieldwork?:

At 12:15 I met up with my group and we prepared for the interview which after some technical issues started. Unfortunately, since he is 92 years old some knowledge was lost though he still said some very eye opening points about the holocaust. After we asked about his experience he told us he was in two concentration camps and before that his mother worked in a library while his father was in a labor camp and once he met back up with his father they lived in hungary until 1956 and that’s when hungarian revolts sprung up about the russian rule which was horrid. This meant that right after the Holocaust these people had to live off rations. All because a leader thousands of miles away decreed it. During this revolution they escaped to Vienna and shortly after in 1959 he got a visa and came to the US. During the time he was in a concentration camp he remembers the routine which was roll calls, in the rain, in the snow and in the sunshine. He remembers standing outside the barracks until noon. He told us that if we just talk about what happened then some people would listen. Lastly, he told us that he doesn’t think his life would’ve changed much if the holocaust hadn’t happened, meaning he would still be the same person and Russia and the US would still cause war and strife all throughout the world.