3 May 2022 Press release

Beginning in mid-April 2022, the German National Library’s German Exile Archive 1933-1945 and the USC Shoah Foundation – The Institute for Visual History and Education will be inviting visitors to take part in beta testing for Kurt S. Maier’s testimony at the German National Library in Frankfurt am Main. Kurt S. Maier was born in Kippenheim in 1930 and fled to the USA with his parents as an 11-year-old boy. The final version of the testimony will create the impression of a real conversation using interactive 3D technology. Maier's testimony is the first interactive eyewitness account centred around the experience of exile.

The interview for the interactive testimony of Dr Kurt S. Maier was recorded in July 2021 in Washington D.C. as part of the project “Learning from the Past for the Present – Interactive 3D Interviews with Eyewitnesses of the Historical Exile”. Along with the experience of exile, Kurt S. Maier’s life story encompasses the forced deportation of Jews from the state of Baden to the camp at Gurs in France in the autumn of 1940. Dr Sylvia Asmus, Head of the Exile Archive, spent five days interviewing Dr Kurt S. Maier. His partial prematury literary estate is preserved in the German Exile Archive. The project will also involve the recording of another interview on the experience of racist and anti-Semitic persecution and of going into exile after 1933.
The interactive eyewitness account is also a part of the USC Shoah Foundation’s Dimensions in Testimony^SM programme and was developed to ensure that the stories of eyewitnesses of the Shoah reach future generations. Using specially recorded interviews, Dimensions in Testimony^SM makes it possible to engage in a question-and-answer-based interaction with eyewitnesses. This interactivity is a central feature of the experience provided by Dimensions in Testimony^SM , as the eyewitnesses’ statements are only activated when a question is posed. Dimensions in Testimony^SM is the first project of its kind in the world.

The test phase for the interactive testimony at the German Exile Archive 1933-1945, which is now starting, is being described as a “beta-test”. In this phase, the interactive testimony is still incomplete and the system that will later manage the dialogue with the interactive testimony is still undergoing training. During the beta test, school classes and other interested groups as well as individuals will have the opportunity to take a first look at the interactive testimony, test it and help improve it.

In the future, Kurt S. Maier’s interactive testimony will be presented publicly in the exhibition space of the German Exile Archive 1933-1945. In conjunction with the permanent exhibition “Exile. Experience and Testimony”, an interactive learning and audio-visual room is being set up to help visitors understand topics such as racism, anti-Semitism and the loss of democratic values, all tangible threats that have persisted throughout history and are still relevant today.

The project “Learning from the Past for the Present – Interactive 3D Interviews with eyewitnesses of Historical Exile” is sponsored by the Hessian Ministry of the Interior and Sport (HMdIS) as part of the programme “Active for Democracy and Against Extremism” (2021) and by the Minister of State for Culture and the Media (BKM) as part of its programme “Fighting Racism and Right-Wing Extremism” (2021-2024).

Booking information for individuals and groups.

Press conference on 9 May at 15:00 at the German National Library in Frankfurt am Main

• Presentation and exclusive opportunity to individually explore the interactive testimony of Kurt S. Maier.
• Dr Kurt S. Maier will be linking to the event by video from the USA and will be available to answer any questions.
• Dr Sylvia Asmus, Head of the German Exile Archive, and Karen Jungblut, Director Emerita of Global Initiatives at the USC Shoah Foundation, will also answer questions about the project.

Registrations for the press event

Please send registrations for the press event to presse@dnb.de

Background

About the German National Library’s German Exile Archive 1933–1945

The German National Library’s German Exile Archive 1933–1945 is a platform for discussing the subjects of exile and emigration during the Nazi era. It collects testimonies of this exile: publications, institutional and personal legacies – from all walks of life and regardless of the prominence of the individual concerned. The Archive’s goal is to capture the phenomenon of exile in all its variety and to facilitate access to our holdings.

The establishment of the Exile Archive during the early post-war period was initiated by a number of émigrés and other persons who saw it as an instrument of political enlightenment. This is another reason why the Exile Archive attaches particular importance to cultural education: the many aspects of exile between 1933 and 1945 are conveyed in exhibitions and a wide variety of events and publications, thus making a significant contribution to the cultivation of a vibrant culture of remembrance.

About USC Shoah Foundation

With its Visual History Archive, award-winning IWitness education programme and the research carried out by the Center for Advanced Genocide Research, the USC Shoah Foundation – The Institute for Visual History and Education seeks to foster empathy, understanding and respect. The USC Shoah Foundation has now been reaching millions of people on six continents from its base at the University of Southern California for well over twenty years.

More information

Biography Dr Kurt S. Maier

Kurt Salomon Maier was born on 4 May 1930 in Kippenheim (Baden). His parents Siegfried and Charlotte Maier, née Auerbacher, ran a small shop in Kippenheim selling fabrics, shoes and haberdashery. His father was a travelling salesman. Kurt grew up with his older brother Heinz.

In August 1938, Kurt S. Maier’s family began making preparations to emigrate to the USA in order to escape persecution by the Nazis. After the November pogroms, during which Kippenheim too became the scene of anti-Semitic riots and devastation, Kurt S. Maier had to leave the elementary school in Kippenheim which he had been attending since 1936. From then on, he went to the Jewish School in Freiburg.

On 22 October 1940, the Maier family was deported to the camp at Gurs in the Pyrenees along with all the other Jews in Baden. The Maier family was able to leave the camp in the spring of 1941 after receiving their U.S. emigration documents. They were among the few prisoners who were not deported to the extermination camps later on. The Maier family emigrated to the USA via Marseilles and Casablanca. On 9 August 1941, they reached New York, where Kurt S. Maier attended a public school with other young refugees and later went to a high school. He took various jobs to supplement the family’s income.
After completing his military service in the U.S. Army, for which he returned to Germany, Kurt S. Maier began studying German Literature and History, finally obtaining his doctoral degree in 1969. Kurt S. Maier began working at the Library of Congress in Washington D.C. in 1978 and still does so today. He was awarded the Order of Merit from the state of Baden-Württemberg in 2010 and the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany in 2019 for his work as a eyewitness of the Shoah.

Tabular biography

• 4 May 1930: Born in Kippenheim (Baden)
• From 1936: Attends elementary school in Kippenheim, from 1938 onwards the first Jewish school in Freiburg i. Br.
• From August 1938: The Maiers prepare to emigrate to the USA
• 22 October 1940: Deportation of the Maiers to the camp at Gurs in Southern France
• Spring 1941: Release from the Gurs camp, as the Maiers’ visa documents for the USA have been issued
• 8 May 1941: The Maiers are given their visa documents at the American consulate in Marseilles; they depart shortly thereafter to Casablanca by ship
• 7 June 1941: The family is interned for several weeks at the Sidi el-Ajachi camp, approx. 80 km south-west of Casablanca
• 26 July 1941: Departure from Casablanca to New York on board the S.S. Nyassa
• 9 August 1941: Arrival in New York
• From Autumn 1941: Attends a public school, then a high school in New York Various jobs to supplement the family income, followed by employment with the US postal service t
• 1947: Receives American citizenship
• 1952-1954: Serves in the US Army
• 1957-1961: Studies German Literature and History in New York, then at the FU Berlin from 1963-1964
• 1967: Marries Margery Teal
• 1969 Awarded his doctorate
• Early 1970s: Teaches German Language and Literature at various colleges
• 1975-1978: Librarian at the Leo Baeck Institute, New York
• Since 1978: Librarian in the German History and Literature department at the Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.
• 1989: Kurt Maier speaks about his experiences in Nazi Germany at a German school for the first time as a eyewitness
• 2010: Kurt S. Maier receives the Order of Merit from the state of Baden-Württemberg for his work as a eyewitness
• 2011: Publication of his autobiography “Unerwünscht. Kindheits- und Jugenderinnerungen eines jüdischen Kippenheimers” (“Unwelcome. A Jewish Kippenheim native’s memories of childhood and adolescence”, 2nd edition 2018)
• 2019: Kurt Maier receives the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany for his work as a eyewitness
• July 2021: Kurt S. Maier is interviewed in Washington, D.C. for Dimensions in Testimony

Informations about the production of Dimensions in Testimony^SM

The eyewitnesses interviewed for Dimensions in Testimony sit in a green screen setting in front of cameras and a microphone. The interviewer asks questions. Each answer is recorded in a separate video clip. Up to 2,000 questions can be asked and answered. The result is a database of answers which can be retrieved in response to verbal questions asked by end-users. The Dimensions in Testimony system uses speech recognition technology to convert the questions asked into search terms. The system assigns the search terms to the most appropriate answer given by the eyewitness. Finally, the relevant video clip is played in order to create the impression of a conversation.

The system records all the questions asked. In order to improve the system’s precision, specially trained staff from the USC Shoah Foundation regularly review the system protocols to ensure that it selects the most closely matching answer given in the original interview context. The staff manually insert a link to the best answer if necessary. The quality of the system thus improves with every question asked. The improvements only become effective a few days or weeks later.

Contact

Images for editorial use

Images for editorial use with reports on the exhibition. Press image material is only available in German.