"Reorienting perspectives: sonic possibilities of the preserved survivor voice in USHMM’s longitudinal First Person program"

This article examines how Holocaust survivor testimony changes over time by focusing on the US Holocaust Memorial Museum’s First Person programme, a unique longitudinal archive that records survivors’ voices across multiple decades. Drawing on distant and close listening methodologies, I analyse subtle yet meaningful shifts in vocal delivery – such as tone, cadence, tempo and emotional inflection – that occur as survivors age and as their relationship to memory, audience and institutional setting evolves. By tracking survivors’ voices over time, this article argues for the value of vocal analysis in Holocaust studies, voice studies and sound studies, demonstrating how sound enhances our understanding of survivor experiences. Using spectrogram analysis of audio recordings from two recurring participants, Nesse Godin (1928–2024) and Fritz Gluckstein (1927–2021), I show that the ageing voice is not merely a symptom of time but a dynamic site of memory work, affective resonance and ethical listening.