I work for about 30 hours each week in an office in Midtown Manhattan, scanning documents, old (pertaining to peoples' persecution under the Nazis in WWII) and new (applications for monetary compensation because of the persecution). The papers in my post from the 3rd of March come from one woman's application file. She was not approved for compensation because in her application she told two different stories, utterly in conflict, about her persecution. One version said that she fled east through the USSR, and the other one said that she spent several years in a hospital in the south of Germany, in Bavaria.
The documents in my post contain a photograph of the applicant as a young girl. I have scanned many photocopies of old photographs, but always photocopies--never the original. This is an original photograph. The international organization that was helping the applicant verify her story sent her a letter saying that they had found records of her hospital stay, and some photographs of her as a child when she was admitted to the hospital, and she could have those photographs to keep, if she wanted, as they might provide sentimental value. But then she sent us one of the photographs, the actual photograph, not a copy. Why? Did it not affect her? Did she think it would help in the approval of her claim (it didn't)? Did the organization maybe send a duplicate, and this was the extra? Or did the photograph bring back too many memories? I wonder how I would have behaved in her situation. I wonder that a lot at my job, how I would have acted in the applicants' situations.
Also noteworthy: The hospital this applicant stayed in during and after the war is in a small tiny town in Germany where my friend was working a couple years ago. I have visited that small tiny Bavarian town, on the lake, in the gently rolling hills.
The documents in my post contain a photograph of the applicant as a young girl. I have scanned many photocopies of old photographs, but always photocopies--never the original. This is an original photograph. The international organization that was helping the applicant verify her story sent her a letter saying that they had found records of her hospital stay, and some photographs of her as a child when she was admitted to the hospital, and she could have those photographs to keep, if she wanted, as they might provide sentimental value. But then she sent us one of the photographs, the actual photograph, not a copy. Why? Did it not affect her? Did she think it would help in the approval of her claim (it didn't)? Did the organization maybe send a duplicate, and this was the extra? Or did the photograph bring back too many memories? I wonder how I would have behaved in her situation. I wonder that a lot at my job, how I would have acted in the applicants' situations.
Also noteworthy: The hospital this applicant stayed in during and after the war is in a small tiny town in Germany where my friend was working a couple years ago. I have visited that small tiny Bavarian town, on the lake, in the gently rolling hills.
