Blog 5: Storycorps and story-telling

 

I chose to listen to a clip from Storycorps in hopes of finding something that was of interest to me—What stood out immediately was that almost every entry had a very intriguing title yet lacked any sort of short summary (like you would find on say Youtube or Netflix) to give you any idea of what the actual narrative would be about. At first glance, I was kind of frustrated with that but I honestly think it’s a good way of drawing the audience in by being just vague enough to make someone click play.

The story that I chose was represented by this quote: “She said, ‘If they let me live with two children, maybe they'll let me live with three.'" Upon opening the link, I found that the narrative that I had selected was a Holocaust story of a young boy who had been separated from his parents and was at risk of being taken to a concentration camp. Seeing a nurse with two children—knowing those with jobs deemed “useful” were sometimes spared—he approached her and asked her to pretend to be his mother. The title ended up being a very important part of the story, though out of context it made little sense. I found this to be a very happy story in spite of partially taking place during the Holocaust. I am reminded that a lot of the time that we view others is their life taken out of context, and perhaps there is more to the situation than first believed.

Ultimately I really enjoyed this piece as it ended happily, with the boy living to 91 and his wife, one of the nurses daughter’s he’d reunited with later in life, was 86 at the time of their recording.

https://storycorps.org/stories/he-survived-the-holocaust-because-of-a-strangers-kindness/