Oral history interview with Miriam Hoffman

Bret Werb interviews Miriam Hoffman in 1999 about songs she collected in a notebook as a child while living in a displaced person camp in Ulm, Germany. Miriam Hoffman relates her experiences as a ten to twelve year-old child in Hindenburg-Kaserne DP Camp, Ulm, Germany: She describes: Writing or collecting about 62 songs; meeting other children in 1946 and singing with them, informally (not in a choir), in four languages: Polish, Russian, Yiddish, and Hebrew; Yiddish becoming the default language between children and parents; singing a wide variety of songs that reflected the national origins of the camp members, but not children’s songs; singing as a sole means of entertainment in the absence of radio, toys, etc.; enjoying live entertainment from visiting performers and CARE packages from the US; children not being paid attention by adults in the camp; children being taken from camp against their parents wishes and sent on illegal Aliyah between 1946 and 1948; parents wailing over a renewed loss of their children; a sense of community in the camp; celebrating the UN vote creating Israel; not celebrating religious holidays; Orthodox Jews keeping a low profile as they were unable to answer the Holocaust question, “Where was God?”; existence in the camp of a criminal underworld. She sings excerpts from several songs.