Jewish Heritage Collection: Oral history interview with Sandra Brett
Date:
2019
Interviewer:
Wilson, Lucas
Interviewee:
Brett, Sandra, 1957-
Description:
Sandra Brett outlines her parents’ experiences during World War II. She responds to questions about her awareness of and reaction to her parents’ wartime stories, and how they have impacted her life. Raised in Johnstown, Pennsylvania, she describes home life for herself and an older brother and sister, saying they had a “pretty normal upbringing.” She notes that she was never interested in the Holocaust until she visited Theresienstadt, in the Czech Republic, about fifteen years ago, and was captivated by the children’s artwork she saw there. An artist herself, Sandra has worked with the Charleston Jewish Community Center and Jewish Federation of Charleston to teach Holocaust history through art, but not out of a sense of honoring her parents or the need to fulfill a mission of remembrance. She gives no more importance to her parents’ stories than to any other survivor, pointing to the large number of atrocities, past and present, worldwide. “I have trouble dissociating that horror from all the other horrors.” She adds, “I think my parents’ story is more important than any reaction that I have to it.” This is one of a number of interviews conducted by Ph.D. candidate Lucas Wilson for his dissertation, “The Structures of Postmemory: Portraits of Survivor-Family Homes in Second-Generation Holocaust Literature.” Wilson was awarded two Charleston Research Fellowships (May 2017, February 2019) by the Pearlstine/Lipov Center for Southern Jewish Culture at the College of Charleston.
