A Civic Sociology

Doug Klayman (PhD sociology ’98) is working to bring sociologists out of their offices and into the communities they study. “We are seen as being separated from the world we do research in, and I don’t see this as an advantage to a social scientist at all,” he says. “I’ve always wanted to do work where I’m involved, not only as a researcher, but as a sociologist in the community.”

After 14 years working for companies focused on federal grant research, Klayman formed Social Dynamics, a consulting company that works primarily with nonprofit and community-based organizations in the D.C. metropolitan area. Now, he says, “I don’t just do research—I facilitate community groups and consult with nonprofit executives. Through my work, I try to empower people to think of themselves as agents of change for themselves and their communities. Socioeconomically disadvantaged people can come together and make a difference in their communities if they realize they have the power to do so.”

Since fall 2007, Klayman has taught the Department of Sociology’s public sociology seminar, which focuses on social marketing, community activism, and program evaluation. Additionally, he is the coordinator of the department’s MA concentration in public sociology. Recently developed under a grant from the Sloan Foundation, the concentration emphasizes the hands-on civic work that has characterized Klayman’s recent work. “Public sociologists use their sociological training to become civically engaged, help solve social problems, and improve social policies themselves,” he says. “It’s the concentration I would have wanted as a graduate student if it had existed back then.”

“Through my work, I try to empower people to think of themselves as agents of change for themselves and their communities.”
Doug Klayman (PhD sociology ‘98)
Discovering Lost Histories

As many as 15,000 Jewish deaf people were killed in Hitler’s Europe. But Morris Field—Polish, Jewish, and deaf—held onto life by a needle and thread. Field’s skilled work as a professional tailor sewing German soldiers’ uniforms, coupled with his ability to conceal his deafness through deft lip-reading, helped him survive five concentration camps before being liberated and eventually relocating to the United States in 1950.

Field is one of a dwindling number of Deaf Holocaust survivors whose testimonies Simon Carmel (PhD anthropology ’87) has sought out and documented for over 25 years. “Deaf survivors managed to keep themselves alive as silent witnesses by hiding their deafness or not revealing their [knowledge of ] sign language,” he says. “Otherwise, deaf survivors would be immediately killed, as the Nazi program sought a pure Aryan race without physically disabled or mentally ill people.” In addition to the thousands of murdered deaf Jews, more than 17,500 German non-Jewish deaf people underwent forced sterilization.

Carmel’s work began in 1980. While presenting his work on Jewish deaf folklore at the biennial national convention of the National Congress of Jewish Deaf in Washington, D.C., Carmel invited several deaf Holocaust survivors onto the stage to share their stories. “Their testimonies struck me so hard, and I decided to start collecting the stories of Deaf Holocaust survivors to preserve them,” says Carmel.

At that time it was an area of Holocaust scholarship that had been conspicuously neglected, primarily because of hearing researchers’ inability to understand sign language. Instead of employing interpreters, most researchers simply failed to record the testimony of deaf survivors, leaving them silent witnesses to the horrors of Nazi Europe for the better part of four decades.

Carmel’s efforts to create a record of Deaf Holocaust survivors’ experiences—a project that, as the years advance, becomes increasingly urgent—have garnered him international attention. He has shared his research at conferences including the Sixth Deaf History International Congress in Berlin, Germany, in the summer of 2006, and Gallaudet University’s 1998 international conference “Deaf People in Hitler’s Europe: 1933–1945.” His work has been supported by the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C., and the Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut.

By casting light on the stories of Deaf Holocaust survivors, Carmel also hopes to make people aware that there are deaf witnesses to more contemporary atrocities as well. “Think of the deaf people who may have witnessed the genocides in Serbia, Rwanda, Kenya, Somalia, Sudan, Darfur, and so on,” he says. “We [need] to interview them regarding their personal experiences as witnesses to what was happening.”