Student from Germany documents Church members’ wartime experiences
February 18, 2009
Judith Sartowski, a student from Germany, is part of a BYU research team interviewing members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints who lived in Germany during World War II. "I am blessed to listen to these faithful people and hear their heroic stories," she says. "They stayed strong in very trying circumstances." Sartowski says that many of the people being interviewed have never before told their stories to anyone other than family.
This massive project, funded in part by donations, is sponsored by BYU's Department of Religious Education. The team is gathering and cataloging photographs, journal entries, newspaper clippings, and personal accounts. "This research has put things into a different perspective for me—joys and problems have a different tone now," Sartowski says. "It has made college life active instead of theoretical.
