Digital Project 3 - Mala Zimetbaum and the Creation of a Testimonial Ensemble

• 1. Mala Zimetbaum: Testimonial Ensemble
• 2. Mala as a Subject
• 3. Perpetrators as subjects
• 4. Mala Zimetbaum: Between Kinship and Death
• 5. Video Testimonies about Mala
• 6. Sources of Mala’s Testimonial Ensemble

1. Mala Zimetbaum: Testimonial Ensemble

Developed by Lizhou Fan and Todd Presner

Derived from the voices of 28 Holocaust survivors, this digital project is a prototype for constructing a “testimonial ensemble” — a multi-voiced testimony — to document the life, actions, and death of Belgian-Jewish heroine Mala Zimetbaum. Mala is remembered for saving the lives of many fellow prisoners in Auschwitz, for being the first woman to ever escape from Auschwitz, and for her memorable death after her capture, when she slit her wrists with a razor blade as the SS guards tried to kill her.

As a form of algorithmic fabulation, the Tableau dashboards are comprised of 2,450 reconfigurable testimonial segments (semantic triplets) that reference Mala. Although not complete narratives or sentences, the triplets represent basic units of speech that can be queried, compared, and reconfigured using the dashboard’s filters. The full dashboard is below, followed by filtered results for triplets with “Mala” as subject and, then, the group of perpetrators as subject. After that, a curated story that references Judith Butler’s interpretation of Antigone follows: “Mala Zimetbaum: Between Kinship and Death.” Finally, sixteen of the original testimonies are available for viewing, and the full references are given for the testimonial ensemble.

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2. Mala as subject

Developed by Lizhou Fan and Todd Presner

By selecting “2 (Mala)” under the subj_cluster triplet filter of the Mala dashboard, this view shows interview segments in which people remember Mala as a subject (describing who she was and what she did).

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3. Perpetrators as subjects

Developed by Lizhou Fan and Todd Presner

By selecting “1 (perpetrators)” under the subj_cluster triplet filter of the Mala dashboard, this view shows interview segments in which people talk about perpetrators as subjects, describing the actions of Germans, SS guards, and specific Nazi officers against Mala, her partner Edek Galinski, and other prisoners.

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4. Mala Zimetbaum: Between Kinship and Death

Developed by Todd Presner and Lizhou Fan

This five-part Tableau story takes a selection of triplets from the 28 witness accounts to emplot a testimonial ensemble in the form of a collective narrative. Mala’s defiance of Nazi authoritarianism takes the form of a wide variety of political and linguistic acts. The testimonial ensemble also bears witness to the multiple ways that Mala represents and creates forms of kinship grounded in an ethic of care that transgress traditional familial and social norms.

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5. Video Testimonies about Mala

Collected by Christy Bailey-Tomecek and Anna Bonazzi

Some of the original video interviews upon which our project is based, provided by the Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies, Yale University Library. The clips capture moments of the interview where the witness is talking about their experience with Mala Zimetbaum.

6. Sources of Mala’s Testimonial Ensemble

Collected by Todd Presner

The Testimonial Ensemble of Mala Zimetbaum’s story draws on the testimonies of 28 witnesses:

• Testimony segments in English from the Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies, Yale University Library:
  1. Roma B. (hvt.3863)
  2. Frances H. (hvt.2525)
  3. Judith P. (hvt.2548)
  4. Rose K. (hvt.0841)
  5. Mania W. (hvt.2623)

• Testimony segments in French from the Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies, Yale University Library, translated by Kendell Clarke:
  1. Chaja G. (hvt.4022)
  2. Rebecca L. (hvt.1976)
  3. Sarah G. (hvt.1980)
  4. Israel M.  (hvt.2981)
  5. Itta W. (hvt.4083)
  6. Yvette B. (hvt.2672)
  7. Benita H. (hvt.4192)
  8. Esther S. (hvt.2827)

• Testimony segments in Hebrew from the Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies, Yale University Library, translated by Rachel Smith:
  1. Frieda K. (hvt.3539)
  2. Helena H. (hvt.3248)
  3. Rivka K. (hvt.3342)
  4. Fele F. (hvt.3341)
  5. Yaakov F. (hvt.1841)

• Testimony segments in Ladino from the Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies, Yale University Library, translated by Kyle Rosen:
  1. Palomba F. (hvt.2779)

• Testimony segments from the US Holocaust Memorial Museum:
  1. Dora Freilich (RG-50.462.0007)
  2. Ruth Krautwirth Meyerowitz (RG-50.030.0161)
  3. Alice Jakubovic (RG-50.030.0469)
  4. Hella Rosenbaum (RG-50.120.0380) [translated from Hebrew by Rachel Smith]

• Testimony at Adolf Eichmann trial, audio available on Youtube:
  1. Raya Kagan (37:00-44:00)
• German trial transcript (session 70): Adolf Eichmann Trial Collection, Leo Baeck Institute Archives and Center for Jewish History (Box 1, Folder 13, page 148), available online: https://archives.cjh.org/repositories/5/archival_objects/491667.

• Testimony segments from Voices of the Holocaust, Illinois Institute of Technology, Paul V. Galvin Library:
  1. Henja Frydman (02:03:33 – 02:05:57), transcript in David Boder, Topical Autobiographies (UCLA Young Research Library Special Collections), pp. 575-639.
  2. Edith Serras (01:04:06 – 01:14:05), transcripts in David Boder, Topical Autobiographies (UCLA Young Research Library Special Collections). pp. 1,302-1,366.

• Text Sources:
  1. Giza Weisblum, “The Escape and Death of the ‘Runner’ Mala Zimetbaum,” in: Yuri Suhl, ed. and trans., They Fought Back: The Story of Jewish Resistance in Nazi Europe (New York: Schocken Books, 1967), quotations from pp. 182-188.
  2. Wieslaw Kielar, Anus Mundi: 1,500 Days in Auschwitz, trans. Susanne Flatauer (New York: Times Books, 1980), quotations from pp. 224-255.  

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