Researchers at the University of Winnipeg are working on a four-year study on the history of refugees in Manitoba. To help with their research, they’re seeking out taped interviews with refugees in the province dating back to 1945.
“We are searching for collections of oral history interviews with refugees who arrived in Manitoba after the Second World War and during the Cold War,” said Dr. Alexander Freund, chair in German-Canadian Studies and project leader. “We suspect that many privately taped interviews are stored in people’s basements and attics that might have been conducted by families or for community projects and we are looking to retrieve them.”
The Postwar and Cold War Refugee Voices of Manitoba project will work to locate 20 previously interviewed individuals in order to do follow-up interviews which would also include their children and grandchildren.
Anyone with their own interviews or knowledge of collections can contact lead researcher and project manager Elizabeth Krahn at (204) 775-9045 or by e-mailing refugees@uwinnipeg.ca.
