Meet the People Who Were Passionate About Creating This Website!!
Roger Fredinburg ~ Radio Roger
I was born in 1960, fifteen years after WWII had ended and was raised in Ashland, Oregon. I relocated to Orange County Ca. and lived there for most of the 1980’s but found my way back home in 1990 and have been here ever since.
My executive producer, Kelleigh Nelson lives in Knoxville, TN, and her cohort in the Holocaust series, Chey Simonton, lives in Seattle, Washington. I haven't had the pleasure of meeting either of these women, but we've become like family and I consider them my close friends.
At the time in 1997 when Kelleigh approached me with the thought of doing a series on the Holocaust, I had been in radio since 1991. I started with KCMX in Medford, Oregon and then was recruited by Alan Corbeth to come to a larger experimental FM station, KOPE-FM Radio. It was one of the first 100,000 watt FM stations to air talk programming in the country. In 1993 KOPE was the cornerstone of a new network syndication effort. I was there from 1993 to 2001. My program was at various times on over 600 different stations, but we averaged 200 stations nationally.
Kelleigh had been my executive producer for about a year when she first mentioned the thought of this series to me. Our format was to interview all types of people keeping up with the news of the day and guests from both sides of the aisle. Kelleigh was responsible for booking my guests and getting the information about them to me prior to their interviews.
I knew talk radio and I knew of anti-Semitism in many groups in America. I felt that if we could show the truth of what happened in WWII perhaps we could change the attitudes of some of these people with their false beliefs. I also wanted the opportunity to bless the Jews and Israel as the Bible clearly states we are to do.
The program to me held both emotional and spiritual revelations. Several times I almost broke down when listening to their stories as I could hear the deep hurt and pain in their voices. When dear Dorit Bader-Whiteman told of the children that escaped prior to the 'final solution,' and of parents sending their children with strangers to save them, I couldn't imagine the pain of both parents and youngsters being separated.
When Samuel Oliner told of his being protected as a young Jewish boy in hiding to save his life and a WWII vet called in to tell of liberating a camp Samuel was speaking about, the WWII veteran started weeping on air. It was heart wrenching.
Of course hearing Henry Feingold talk about his book, "Bearing Witness," and his very clear take on how it could possibly happen again awakened a sense of the profound evil that perpetrated these horrors on humanity.
How many people have actually had an opportunity to sit down with survivors of the Holocaust? I kept asking myself, "Where was God?" And I kept thinking, "Why God?" I had a lot lower opinion of people as well as a much higher opinion of those that suffered. Their strong spirit and their ability to hold on to their dignity gave me an increased understanding of these amazing people. Of all my years in radio, I consider this program to be the best I've accomplished. We offer here both the original interviews and the transcripts of same so others may come to understand the horrors and evil that overtook the Jews of Europe in WWII. Once again, I thank every guest and hope that you'll find a deeper understanding of what they suffered and survived.
My executive producer, Kelleigh Nelson lives in Knoxville, TN, and her cohort in the Holocaust series, Chey Simonton, lives in Seattle, Washington. I haven't had the pleasure of meeting either of these women, but we've become like family and I consider them my close friends.
At the time in 1997 when Kelleigh approached me with the thought of doing a series on the Holocaust, I had been in radio since 1991. I started with KCMX in Medford, Oregon and then was recruited by Alan Corbeth to come to a larger experimental FM station, KOPE-FM Radio. It was one of the first 100,000 watt FM stations to air talk programming in the country. In 1993 KOPE was the cornerstone of a new network syndication effort. I was there from 1993 to 2001. My program was at various times on over 600 different stations, but we averaged 200 stations nationally.
Kelleigh had been my executive producer for about a year when she first mentioned the thought of this series to me. Our format was to interview all types of people keeping up with the news of the day and guests from both sides of the aisle. Kelleigh was responsible for booking my guests and getting the information about them to me prior to their interviews.
I knew talk radio and I knew of anti-Semitism in many groups in America. I felt that if we could show the truth of what happened in WWII perhaps we could change the attitudes of some of these people with their false beliefs. I also wanted the opportunity to bless the Jews and Israel as the Bible clearly states we are to do.
The program to me held both emotional and spiritual revelations. Several times I almost broke down when listening to their stories as I could hear the deep hurt and pain in their voices. When dear Dorit Bader-Whiteman told of the children that escaped prior to the 'final solution,' and of parents sending their children with strangers to save them, I couldn't imagine the pain of both parents and youngsters being separated.
When Samuel Oliner told of his being protected as a young Jewish boy in hiding to save his life and a WWII vet called in to tell of liberating a camp Samuel was speaking about, the WWII veteran started weeping on air. It was heart wrenching.
Of course hearing Henry Feingold talk about his book, "Bearing Witness," and his very clear take on how it could possibly happen again awakened a sense of the profound evil that perpetrated these horrors on humanity.
How many people have actually had an opportunity to sit down with survivors of the Holocaust? I kept asking myself, "Where was God?" And I kept thinking, "Why God?" I had a lot lower opinion of people as well as a much higher opinion of those that suffered. Their strong spirit and their ability to hold on to their dignity gave me an increased understanding of these amazing people. Of all my years in radio, I consider this program to be the best I've accomplished. We offer here both the original interviews and the transcripts of same so others may come to understand the horrors and evil that overtook the Jews of Europe in WWII. Once again, I thank every guest and hope that you'll find a deeper understanding of what they suffered and survived.
The Holocaust Series ~~ My story
by Kelleigh Nelson
As a youngster I was raised in a Jewish neighborhood in Chicago and grew up with wonderful Jewish friends, schoolmates, and families that I babysat for as a young girl. I never knew growing up of the history of oppression and discrimination endured by the Jewish people. They were my neighbors and friends.
Throughout history the Jewish people have suffered persecution, but in the 20th century, the most vile and horrific tortuous acts were perpetrated on European Jews by Hitler and his Henchmen. A quarter of a century ago I began to look at the roots of anti-Semitism in society both Biblically and historically. Years of research and reading led me ultimately to a study of the Holocaust.
In the late 90s, I was the producer for Roger Fredinburg's nationally syndicated talk radio program. I called him and told him what I'd been researching and what I wanted to do and he was more than thrilled to do a series on the Holocaust with guests that had been there and lived to tell their stories. They were the survivors.
My next phone call was to my best friend and researcher, Chey Simonton. Chey had the ability to find guests that she knew we'd want to put on the air and who had experiences the audience needed to hear. She had the high speed computer and I didn't. So she'd research the topics and find the people for me and I'd call and talk to them to see if they'd be willing to be interviewed on national radio and tell their stories. There were so many wonderful people with experiences and books that it was difficult to choose, but we managed to put the guests in an order that seemed to tell the history of the Holocaust from beginning to end. Every one of these people are special to all of us and always will be.
About a year ago Chey and I were talking and I mentioned the Holocaust tapes and she said we should put them on the web. She told me about a program I could download to turn the tapes into MP3's. When I called and told Roger, he was as excited as we were and thrilled to know we could still get these stories out to the public. When they were completely done, I sent the discs to Chey who put her heart and soul into transcribing all the interviews.
Roger was the most wonderful host I could ever imagine. His compassion and understanding with his guests was superb. I can't think of anyone that could have done a better job. In listening to the tapes of these programs again, I was struck at how wonderful they were and how Roger asked just the right questions of every guest. I wept through many of the interviews, but was especially touched when a WWII veteran called in during Samuel Oliner's interview to say that he had liberated one of the concentration camps Samuel had mentioned and this dear veteran started to weep on air.
This is the accomplishment I am most proud of having done in my life and I believe both Chey and Roger feel the same way. The loss of so many wonderful and brilliant Jewish people of Europe is still felt in society today. The entire Holocaust series was given to every university and college that requested them as well as Steven Spielberg's Shoah Foundation. Our first guest, Dr. Michael Berenbaum, the Project Director for the Washington D.C. Holocaust Museum and author of THE WORLD MUST KNOW, went from there to working for Spielberg's Shoah Foundation documenting survivors' stories.
I thank Chey for her dedicated help and for Roger's wonderful ability to interview these survivors with such empathy and understanding. The three of us forged a bond to do something that we're all very proud of and that we hope will tell the story.
Throughout history the Jewish people have suffered persecution, but in the 20th century, the most vile and horrific tortuous acts were perpetrated on European Jews by Hitler and his Henchmen. A quarter of a century ago I began to look at the roots of anti-Semitism in society both Biblically and historically. Years of research and reading led me ultimately to a study of the Holocaust.
In the late 90s, I was the producer for Roger Fredinburg's nationally syndicated talk radio program. I called him and told him what I'd been researching and what I wanted to do and he was more than thrilled to do a series on the Holocaust with guests that had been there and lived to tell their stories. They were the survivors.
My next phone call was to my best friend and researcher, Chey Simonton. Chey had the ability to find guests that she knew we'd want to put on the air and who had experiences the audience needed to hear. She had the high speed computer and I didn't. So she'd research the topics and find the people for me and I'd call and talk to them to see if they'd be willing to be interviewed on national radio and tell their stories. There were so many wonderful people with experiences and books that it was difficult to choose, but we managed to put the guests in an order that seemed to tell the history of the Holocaust from beginning to end. Every one of these people are special to all of us and always will be.
About a year ago Chey and I were talking and I mentioned the Holocaust tapes and she said we should put them on the web. She told me about a program I could download to turn the tapes into MP3's. When I called and told Roger, he was as excited as we were and thrilled to know we could still get these stories out to the public. When they were completely done, I sent the discs to Chey who put her heart and soul into transcribing all the interviews.
Roger was the most wonderful host I could ever imagine. His compassion and understanding with his guests was superb. I can't think of anyone that could have done a better job. In listening to the tapes of these programs again, I was struck at how wonderful they were and how Roger asked just the right questions of every guest. I wept through many of the interviews, but was especially touched when a WWII veteran called in during Samuel Oliner's interview to say that he had liberated one of the concentration camps Samuel had mentioned and this dear veteran started to weep on air.
This is the accomplishment I am most proud of having done in my life and I believe both Chey and Roger feel the same way. The loss of so many wonderful and brilliant Jewish people of Europe is still felt in society today. The entire Holocaust series was given to every university and college that requested them as well as Steven Spielberg's Shoah Foundation. Our first guest, Dr. Michael Berenbaum, the Project Director for the Washington D.C. Holocaust Museum and author of THE WORLD MUST KNOW, went from there to working for Spielberg's Shoah Foundation documenting survivors' stories.
I thank Chey for her dedicated help and for Roger's wonderful ability to interview these survivors with such empathy and understanding. The three of us forged a bond to do something that we're all very proud of and that we hope will tell the story.
Meet Chey Simonton
Transcription typing is a painstaking
process, difficult for anyone to understand who has never done it
before. I laugh when I see “Help Wanted” ads for transcription
typists --- must type 70 words per minute. That's a clear sign of
someone who has never done this type of work! Typing speed counts
for nothing in this kind of work--- listening, concentrating on
hearing the words is the heart of transcription. It's necessary to
adjust the speed and volume of the recording and concentrate of
listening, hearing the words---- rewinding and listening over and
over to the same little 30 second or 60 second sound-byte so that it
can be typed and punctuated accurately. It's not unusual for a 60
minute recording to take 6 to 8 hours or more to type, if there are
multiple speakers or unusual accents.
When I took on this project for Roger I agreed readily. Kelleigh Nelson is my best friend and we had worked together in 1997 to find just the right guests to tell the story Kelleigh had in mind. I was in Seattle with a high-speed internet connection to search Amazon. She was in Knoxville without a computer. Roger Fredinburg, our dear friend and veteran radio host was in Medford, Oregon. Roger paid for all the long distance phone calls necessary for us to track down the guests. Kelleigh called and scheduled them; one each week for 21 weeks.
That was all years ago and I'd forgotten much of it until the cassettes from those interviews came back to our attention in 2010. Technology changed. Cassettes were converted to MP3 files and everything old was new again! Then the typing commenced.
As I mentioned before, the art of transcription typing is the art of listening. Over and over, I re-wound and re-listened to passages; the story told by Dorit Bader Whiteman of the Kindertransport where mothers and fathers took their children, their babies, to the Vienna train station in the middle of the night and handed them over to strangers so their precious children may have a chance to live although the parents expected to perish; Rochelle Sutin, a 14 year-old who escaped barefoot from a Nazi labor camp in Poland and survived in forested wilderness in October until she stumbled on a camp of Jewish Resistance deep in the forest and found Jack, a boy she knew from school who had a place prepared for her because his mother (who had been killed by the Nazis) appeared to him in a dream and told him Rochelle would come. My God, such stories—true stories that break your heart!
There are roughly 30 hours of interviews here. As far as I know, this is the most comprehensive presentation of its kind. Scholars, survivors, historians, every aspect is touched on. It builds logically from Michael Berenbaum, the head of the National Holocaust Museum, who set the stage, through James Pool explaining Hitler's rise to power, to the stories of survivors of the camps and Nazi persecutions, to Irving Belmont to the young US Army officer who oversaw the Landsberg Displaced Persons Camp and after the surrender and Dr. Henry Feingold, the final guest. When asked how to recognize the beginning of tyranny said, “it's the faceless bureaucracy--- the machine without humanity.”
Roger is a remarkable interviewer. He asks simple questions, the questions I would ask if I had the chance, then lets the speaker get on with the telling. I am so proud that he is my friend.
I was hard-pressed to decide to what extent I should edit as I typed. I itched to do so; but, I didn't feel comfortable changing the words of those remarkable people, the survivors who told their stories in elderly voices in English, a language that is not their mother tongue. Should I have left spoken words untyped? Should I condense and combine? Transcription is an art as much as a skill and I have a lot to learn. In the end, I made very few changes. Any errors in spelling, punctuation and editing are mine.
Chey Simonton , January 2011
When I took on this project for Roger I agreed readily. Kelleigh Nelson is my best friend and we had worked together in 1997 to find just the right guests to tell the story Kelleigh had in mind. I was in Seattle with a high-speed internet connection to search Amazon. She was in Knoxville without a computer. Roger Fredinburg, our dear friend and veteran radio host was in Medford, Oregon. Roger paid for all the long distance phone calls necessary for us to track down the guests. Kelleigh called and scheduled them; one each week for 21 weeks.
That was all years ago and I'd forgotten much of it until the cassettes from those interviews came back to our attention in 2010. Technology changed. Cassettes were converted to MP3 files and everything old was new again! Then the typing commenced.
As I mentioned before, the art of transcription typing is the art of listening. Over and over, I re-wound and re-listened to passages; the story told by Dorit Bader Whiteman of the Kindertransport where mothers and fathers took their children, their babies, to the Vienna train station in the middle of the night and handed them over to strangers so their precious children may have a chance to live although the parents expected to perish; Rochelle Sutin, a 14 year-old who escaped barefoot from a Nazi labor camp in Poland and survived in forested wilderness in October until she stumbled on a camp of Jewish Resistance deep in the forest and found Jack, a boy she knew from school who had a place prepared for her because his mother (who had been killed by the Nazis) appeared to him in a dream and told him Rochelle would come. My God, such stories—true stories that break your heart!
There are roughly 30 hours of interviews here. As far as I know, this is the most comprehensive presentation of its kind. Scholars, survivors, historians, every aspect is touched on. It builds logically from Michael Berenbaum, the head of the National Holocaust Museum, who set the stage, through James Pool explaining Hitler's rise to power, to the stories of survivors of the camps and Nazi persecutions, to Irving Belmont to the young US Army officer who oversaw the Landsberg Displaced Persons Camp and after the surrender and Dr. Henry Feingold, the final guest. When asked how to recognize the beginning of tyranny said, “it's the faceless bureaucracy--- the machine without humanity.”
Roger is a remarkable interviewer. He asks simple questions, the questions I would ask if I had the chance, then lets the speaker get on with the telling. I am so proud that he is my friend.
I was hard-pressed to decide to what extent I should edit as I typed. I itched to do so; but, I didn't feel comfortable changing the words of those remarkable people, the survivors who told their stories in elderly voices in English, a language that is not their mother tongue. Should I have left spoken words untyped? Should I condense and combine? Transcription is an art as much as a skill and I have a lot to learn. In the end, I made very few changes. Any errors in spelling, punctuation and editing are mine.
Chey Simonton , January 2011
