Latest / Found in Interpretation Podcast / Ep. 59 - One Trial, Four Languages: The Nuremberg Interpreters

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Ep. 59 - One Trial, Four Languages: The Nuremberg Interpreters · Found in Interpretation Podcast

0:00
Hello, hello, and welcome to another episode of Found in
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Interpretation podcast, the podcast that talks about
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translation, interpretation, artificial intelligence
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conferences, all kinds of topics.
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We bring always interesting people and I'm here Brian.
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Brian, how you doing? I'm doing great.
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Thank you. Thanks for asking.
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And we are also here with Elkie and I'm very excited to hear
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what you have to say about the Exhibit one trial, 4 languages.
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So thank you for accepting our invitation and for being here
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today. Well, thank you for having me.
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You know, it's a great opportunity and thanks to all
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the modern technology which started way back when, you know,
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and then we can do this here and I will be happy to share some of
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my wisdoms, the things that we've collected in the past
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thirteen years on this topic. Perfect.
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Alright everyone don't forget like, share, subscribe, comment
1:03
and let's kick it. So I guess our first question
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would be why? Why have an exhibit on on one
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trial for languages? I mean, as as interpreters, we
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know that it's important, but can you give us a an idea as to
1:30
why this became something that needed to happen?
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My motivation was being a conference interpreter.
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I've now stopped, but I've been one for whatever 3540 years.
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Of course, slow start as usually, but then and the prime
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time I was really busy and shortly after I had started I
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was, I started to wonder about the clients because they seem
2:04
not to understand what we were doing.
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They seem, of course, not to appreciate it.
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And it was not ill will I analyzed, but it was ignorance,
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ignorance about what we are doing.
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We're not parrots or anything like that.
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You know, you've all had this experience.
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Somebody says something like, don't think, just translate, you
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see. And it really, really upset me.
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And so I thought they, the people have to learn to know
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more about what we're doing and being based in Nurnberg and
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being present in several events, commemorations that had to do
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with the Nuremberg trials, talking to people who've been
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there, who'd worked there at the beginning of my career, some of
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them were still alive. And I then brought these two
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things together. Now the Nuremberg trials were
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the breakthrough of simultaneous interpretation.
3:15
No conference interpreting nowadays without simultaneous
3:18
interpretation and nobody knows about it.
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I I noticed with the people who have been working at the trial
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and also thereafter, and those that made the museum about those
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things, they had no idea neither of the role of the interpreters
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nor of the significance for interpreting the this what, what
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had happened there. It seemed even that there, many
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of the participants hadn't even noticed that they were there,
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although they were wearing headsets all throughout their
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work there. And it really, really annoyed
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me. I said something's gotta be done
4:01
about this for several reasons to pay respect to these pioneers
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because they deserve to be talked about their wonderful,
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um, CVS, very impressive personalities, as we can also
4:19
see from there and careers and lives afterwards.
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I can talk about it maybe some other time because that is also
4:30
the very long story. Anyway, I thought this got to be
4:35
done and we got the opportunity we meaning like interpreters
4:40
region Germany to do something about it because this at the
4:46
time new museum on the trials in the courthouse.
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Talk to me and said, look, don't you, I want to do something
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through throughout the year kind of series of events because
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you've been telling me time and again the trial was so important
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for interpreting and they have an educational mandate and they
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thought this is a good thing and we thought it is a good thing.
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So we started out and we in 20-30 team, yes, we did have 4
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events on different subjects and one of them was on The Pioneers
5:32
of interpretation. And for this together with a
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small working group of colleagues, we tried to dig out
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information and there is hardly anything.
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Yes, there is, there was, there is hardly anything.
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About the interpreters themselves.
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They are. There was some alive, but very
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few at the time. Now there's nobody alive and the
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the only thing there was was this thesis, the MA thesis
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written by Francesca Giba, The Origins of Simultaneous
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Interpretation, published in 19955698.
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But she researched that in the years before and at the time a
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lot of them were still alive. And Jessica Gabor did an
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impressive amount of research work, talked to them, wrote
6:32
letters. This was before the Internet and
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at the at the end of her research, facts started to be
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used. So you can imagine lots and lots
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of letters, handwritten, typed at whatever.
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And she wrote, I don't know, to how many interpreters, plus also
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people that had been responsible for the organization and was
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still around and the names she could get and also asked, of
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course, everyone, do you remember who the And so she came
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up with a pool of names plus some data on them.
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And this book was published by What Do I University Press.
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Yeah, I see it right now. It's Ottawa University Press,
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Actually, yes. Yes, and strongly recommended.
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And so that's where we started out and then we did because we
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know that had Internet research is on the Internet on these
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names and one thing led to another and we came up with some
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information in addition to what she had and on the basis of this
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wrote some short series. OK.
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And um, debt is was printed on on posters, paper posters and we
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posted it in the lobby of room 600.
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Room is 600 is the room where the court, the trial happened.
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And because one of the events, the first event took place in
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room 600 and we had it in the lobby and everybody was so
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impressed, non interprets interpreters and not only
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impressed, but my first feeling was they really had no clue at
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all. And so in The Who had?
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No clue time. There's just the visitor.
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OK, OK, alright. The visitors and no matter what
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they came, came from whether they were lawyers or jurists or
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interpreters or whatever. And, and mind you, we also had
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some international law professors who'd written volumes
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of the number of trials, you know, and, and this experience
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has been confirmed in later years.
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We talked to many specialists. They all, some of them have also
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seen the exhibition meanwhile and everybody says we were not
9:15
aware, we didn't know and so on and so forth.
9:20
Yeah. You know how the interpreters
9:22
for the Nuremberg trials were recruited, What were there?
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Because basically they were pioneers, as you said, yes.
9:29
So on what basis would they were were they qualified to do the
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work? There was a screening process.
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Umm, there is one important name, that is Colonel Leon
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Doster who was appointed by the Chief Prosecutor of the United
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States, Jackson to organise the interpreting.
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They had just decided we'll do a trial in 4 languages.
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Haha, how do you do that? You know there was only concept
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at the time. Nothing.
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Else and so they needed people to be able to not only do the
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languages, but also to do it in Simal.
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And thus there had heard of the first experiments of Simo which
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started, some of which started in at the ILO.
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And there was a little bit here, that little bit also in Chicago
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and so on. And he collected the information
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and then he did a demonstration with it.
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And it was then decided, yes, it could be tried, but how do you
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get the people the Department of War in the United States, the
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equivalent in the in the UK and in France published announcement
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calls OHP for people to to register or to make themselves
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known. And there was a lot of work to
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mouth propaganda. And there were, I think there
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were also some adverts and a lot of things that happened by
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chance, somebody who met somebody and was impressed at
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all so forth and then tried to devise a kind of selection
11:18
procedure. Those, that example, those that
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ended up with the Department of War and that applied there,
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we're invited for an interview and had to speak German of
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course, or whatever they were applying for.
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Mostly it was English to German in the United States.
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And to ensure that they were fluent, that they had the
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vocabulary of daily language and and now the most important thing
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that they had the nerves. Hmm.
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The stamina and most of them didn't qualify.
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They most of them spoke kitchen German, you know.
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OK. But yeah, Mama died.
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Yeah. To get back but of course there
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were a lot of immigrants people that had fled the United States
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now sorry the Germany, Germany united to the United States and
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as a matter of fact most of the people who did from or into
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German were exiled. Many of them choose, of course,
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in France, similar process. In Britain hardly anything
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happened to be only very few that came from Britain, probably
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because they thought the United States is doing this, they're
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paying for the whole thing, let them do it.
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And the Russians were simply ordered to go OK.
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There was also a shortage there were they sent much less than
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they should have. And these people worked
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themselves to death. They were highly qualified
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language wise, but nobody had any idea of cyber.
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Now this was phase one. Let me just add phase two and
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then the question. The phase two was when they were
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pre selected and came to Nurnberg that Alfred chair or
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adjuster did screenings with them.
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Again, exams and so on and so forth was with mock trials and
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only 5% qualified. Wow.
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So. Now what?
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Just so everybody knows who's listening, it's one trial, 4
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languages. What are the four languages that
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were at the Nuremberg trial? The Allies and the losers.
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It's easy to say yes. English for US and UK, question
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for the USSR and French and of course German.
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OK. And were they working
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bidirectionally or there was into German or into English
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booth where let's say with the concept of an A&C language or
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was it A&B? And I don't know, will you be
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showing pictures as well? Not during the podcast.
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Or maybe I could try. We'll see.
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We'll just we have a photograph with the booths that explains it
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very well, but I'll try to explain it.
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People have usually seen photographs of Room 600 and the
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rear left corner with some glass OHS Pennings.
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Yeah, yeah. Pedals.
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Now, these were the booths called by themselves aquariums.
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So that's what they were. And it is part the left part of
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the front bench and two rows of people behind each other the
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panels each. Have it right here.
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Yeah, we have a better one. Um, yeah, you see it at the back
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here. I have one widget where it
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explains the the how the booth was work.
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Maybe you could put that in later on.
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That's yeah. Anyway, we have two rows of
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people. Each row had two booths.
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That means between there were three people and then there was
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this one screen and the another three people and in front of
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them the same thing. And between the front and the
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rear of course was also a glass panel.
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Now the method was three people per booth, one to do, let's talk
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about the English books, one to do German to English, one to do
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French to English, one to do Russian to English.
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OK, then you had the French books doing German to French,
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English to French, Russian to French.
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You had the German booth doing English to German, French to
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German, Russian to German, and the same thing for Russian now.
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And now the really great thing for the interpreter, they only
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had one mic that the purpose like around Yeah and which is
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fine if somebody is doing a bleeding or talking at length,
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but if you have a cross examination back to Google and
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OK, we know what that would mean right?
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Yes, in such a. Situation.
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Yeah, it's mind you have to change your own voice, but you
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really can't. Then you try.
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Yeah, we we still have that when we're interpreting online.
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OK. So that was the arrangement.
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Those there came up with this. With where were they changing
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between like the did they use the same microphone, one next to
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each other and one was, let's say the lawyer and the other one
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was the defendant, let's say and they were both using the same
17:33
microphone, one next to each other or did we have that?
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We'll try to do both at the same time.
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What was the solution? Yeah, the, yeah, if you were,
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um, because the defendant and the lawyer were both talking
17:54
German and you had to do into English.
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Is that the situation? You mean Yeah, Yeah.
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Yeah. And then you would have, yeah,
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you there is only one person doing into English, from German
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into English. So you have to go through it.
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But that wouldn't happen because the defendant was always German
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and all the rest of them were never German.
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OK, there were. Among the US lawyers were a
18:24
couple of German immigrants, some who would work before in
18:31
the Foreign Office and had left for office reasons.
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But the official language was English.
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They always talked English. OK, so the official language of
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the court was English. No, whoever, whoever was on,
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there were days that were Russian, there were days that
18:50
were French, there were days that were English.
18:52
And then if you have a cross examination of the famous case
18:57
of Girling, it started out with Jackson English, then the
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Frenchman got his go, and so on and so forth.
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So if the if the entire day were to happen in one language, let's
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just imagine, would that mean that one interpreter was stuck
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all day doing interpretation in that one language into the other
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language? This is just the place to say
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thank you for this language a question.
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It's a very good question yes, it it gives me opportunity to
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say what I wanted to say. We had this team that just
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described in the room, but in in next door was a backup team.
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OHK OK. Same same combinations, same
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amount of people, and they were listening in all the time.
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OK. During the proceedings and when
19:58
I give you the photo of the booths, you will see that from
20:02
our perspective, looking onto the boots on the right hand
20:05
side, there is somebody sitting who is the monitor, the monitor.
20:11
But sometimes there were two, one for the front line at, one
20:14
for the back row. And they listened in to the
20:19
different booths. OK, 4 speed.
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Was it? Have they lost it because it was
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too fast? Was it obvious that somebody
20:29
couldn't get on? Go on.
20:32
There were breakdowns. There was breakdowns and there
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were also pulling other things. I mean, I have anecdotes for
20:41
this that will now go too far. And, and when they noticed
20:46
something like this, if it was speed, then they would hit a
20:50
button and do something that we all are still dreaming of.
20:55
The the the yellow light would go on for slow, slow, slow.
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Yeah, both fast. Yes, both at the witness stand
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and in front of the presiding judge.
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And then if that didn't help the hit it again it bulb lit up
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render stone. Like you so it went from yellow
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to red. Now if they notice that one of
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the interpreters. This the Soviet Union didn't
21:26
complain because it was red. Yeah.
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So yeah, Union would say no. Red is the colour for forward,
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not backward, you know, not to stop.
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Maybe at the time they were not thinking about that detail.
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Probably not. Yes, it was more like you're
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doing something wrong. Yeah, at the time they noticed
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the monitors noticed that somebody was not keeping up and
21:54
they would inform the backroom that the understudy should get
22:00
ready and they changed. OK.
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Were so they were not changing every 20 minutes or 30 minutes
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like we're used to today. No, no.
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It's like until exhaustion, basically.
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Like in? In a way, yeah.
22:18
Yes, it was terrible. We have the diary of one of the
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interpreters into German exhibit also.
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OK, cool, because her, her daughter gave it to us.
22:35
And in on the the what was it the 21st of November 1945, the
22:47
chief prosecutor Jackson gave his opening statement, which is
22:51
rhetorically and for the history of international law and God
22:56
knows what really, really impressive.
23:00
It's an intricate document. The language is polished.
23:05
He wrote and changed it for weeks, and she writes in her
23:15
diary that they get did get the speech on the evening before
23:21
whatever, but that of course he didn't stick to the manuscript.
23:25
Surprise, surprise. Surprise 70 years later.
23:29
Yeah, and and that she was on to interpret and I I think she was
23:40
not going for the full 2 hours, but she writes it was extremely
23:48
exhausting. And I personally do not
23:51
understand how you can how you can keep up with that type of
23:57
language and reproduce that style in a similar situation
24:05
without preparing for two days or whatever.
24:09
I have not yet been able to find a recording of that.
24:15
We do have some recordings, um, where you can hear translators
24:21
or interpreters voices, but um, this is haphazard and maybe it
24:28
is somewhere in some archive. Also this German voice or
24:34
interpretation of of the opening statement, but haven't been able
24:37
to find that yet. And what about the judge?
24:42
So would would the judge was listening to the interpreters in
24:45
order to under. I mean if I remember there were
24:47
4 judges right? One from each country like
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United States and in Kingdom, Soviet Union and France or there
24:54
were two from these two judges. From each from each country.
25:00
OK, two judges from each country and they were using also the
25:05
interpreting services. They were, yes, when the Germans
25:12
were speaking, of course and but, but when you look at the
25:17
photographs, you can see that behind the bench there are some
25:22
heads. Usually you only see the heads
25:25
and there are some interpreters placed behind the judges 4
25:33
helping out if if something wasn't understood.
25:36
And for the conversations between the judges.
25:41
Now you have in the the presiding judge who's British,
25:46
then next to him the other British judge, next to him on
25:51
the other side, the two US judges on the far right, the two
25:56
French judges on the far left, the two Russians are judges.
26:00
And this seating arrangement was intentional by Jackson, who was
26:06
responsible for the whole organization, because in this
26:10
way the four English speaking judges could talk to each other
26:16
and make arrangements and say, do we like that rule, you know?
26:19
Hmm. And until it reached the others,
26:23
you know, they had already kind of made an arrangement.
26:26
That's nothing to do with interpreting, but.
26:29
No, but that's interesting. And if it was?
26:31
Interesting to know. Yeah.
26:32
And behind the judges you had people who did whispering or
26:37
consec on on occasion at HOC when it was necessary.
26:44
Now, I, I heard somewhere in correct me if I'm wrong, but
26:47
that were there times where they didn't believe the what was
26:51
being interpreted was accurate when they came to say like the
26:55
war crimes and like atrocities towards people, like they said
26:59
that's impossible. This couldn't happen to someone,
27:02
could never do something like that to another human being.
27:05
So they the, the interpretation must be wrong.
27:08
Like, can you repeat that? And it was actually, after three
27:11
or four tries, it was the same thing, the same message and
27:14
like, oh, actually something that was done by from one human
27:18
to another. In this way, I couldn't confirm
27:22
this OHT, but I can confirm that quite rare occasions the
27:32
defendants tried to blame it on the interpreter and to twist
27:37
words around and who the example that is best known and that can
27:42
also be watched on YouTube because there is the the film on
27:50
the cross examination of curving and he tried to wiggle his way
27:59
out and he's clever and he's intelligent and there was 1.
28:06
I don't think I can reproduce the exact example now where they
28:11
said it was about conquering the Rhineland and it was the way the
28:22
word that the German word he used for conquer was translated
28:27
and and then Jackson picked up on that word and made another
28:35
language question on basics of this.
28:37
Anyway, Guring then said, no, this is not the way this word
28:43
has to be interpreted. It can mean ABCDF, you know, to
28:47
wash it down to lower it in it impact that several times,
28:54
especially in his thing. But it it's not a major point.
28:58
It's just that he's trying to have a show now about the fact
29:04
atrocities. It's unbelievable the feeling
29:10
existed because the Americans showed several movies that had
29:21
been or videos or whatever you call it at the time, films they
29:24
had made when opening the concentration camps.
29:31
Hmm. What they found and um, they
29:37
showed this and of course everybody's stomach turned and
29:43
the audience among the lawyers and obviously also of some of
29:49
the defendants, of course everybody said we never knew.
29:54
We never knew and I never heard of this, including those that
29:58
were on the photographs right in the middle of it.
30:01
And but nobody took that serious.
30:06
However, I think some of them really were not aware of the
30:12
reality of what had happened and nor did they want to know.
30:17
I didn't, you know, like the the guy who was the head of the
30:24
bank, the National Bank at the time, who did the deals and took
30:29
all the gold that they collected in the concentration camps and
30:32
all of that. But yeah, Mashad was his name.
30:37
But some of them were really, really, really shocked, as you
30:42
could see. Um, but uh, no, they nobody said
30:53
it's fake. I mean until now days, but they
30:56
also nobody. Said, were there, were there any
31:01
discussions beforehand about the reliability of the technology
31:06
because it was so new? Where did they internally debate
31:11
about it, say to try to do it in consec and then it was decided
31:15
to use this novel technology? Or did they go all in on the
31:22
equipment to do simultaneous interpretation?
31:24
OK, when the London agreement was made and they had decided to
31:31
do it in 4 languages, it was clear to everybody, especially
31:38
the organizers, IE the US and mostly just Judge Jackson, that
31:47
it couldn't be done in conflict as was normal at the time,
31:52
because they wanted to finish it fast.
31:55
And you can't do a cross examination in concept that's
32:00
worth anything, you know. Right, especially in foreign
32:02
languages. Yeah, I'm saying forget it.
32:05
I mean, it's it's simply impossible.
32:08
Yes. To serve their purpose, I mean.
32:11
And that is why Jackson, um, assign the task to his son, who
32:21
was also a lawyer, to find a possibility of how this could be
32:26
done in a feasible way. And I think he must have had
32:31
some inkling that there is something like symbol around,
32:35
but he did not know, not any anything else.
32:39
And then the Sun contacted the Stair, who was at Georgetown
32:44
University at the time, who used to be the personal interpreter
32:49
of Eisenhower. And he knew that experiments had
32:57
been done with Simo. And possibly he was also in
33:03
Chicago where they had, I think it was the Rotary Club had an
33:07
international meeting with Simon and incidentally with two French
33:13
interpreters who also were later on went to the trial.
33:18
OK. Wow.
33:19
And he the information he gathered made him believe,
33:27
convinced him that it is possible.
33:29
And then as I said before, they organised the trial of for this
33:35
at the War Department. I don't know whom they put in
33:41
the situation of interpreters, but they they used it was mainly
33:46
to check the equipment. You know, as always, you know,
33:50
they do the equipment and forget about the software.
33:55
And so they did a trial there. Somebody gave a speech or read a
34:01
speech or something and somebody did it.
34:05
I don't know what. I, I don't remember off whether
34:08
that was said from which language to which language.
34:11
I English was involved, of course.
34:13
And um, they had invited to this trial several officials that
34:21
were responsible in some one way or another for the organization
34:26
of the trial in Nurnberg and they were convinced it works and
34:35
equipment wise. Hmm.
34:38
And this equipment or core part of the equipment came from IBM?
34:45
Oh, no way. Yeah, it was IBM, Yeah.
34:48
Yeah. Wasn't IBM 2IN Japan for the
34:51
trials in Japan as well? I don't know why.
34:55
As far as I know, they did consec.
34:57
OK, because I was under the impression that I was involved
35:00
for a bit, but maybe not. Now what?
35:05
What's interpretation systems? What was?
35:09
Actually happening in room 600 was most stuff from the, I don't
35:16
know, so and so many signalling core, 4th signalling core or
35:21
whatever of the US Army plus a little bit of IBM.
35:26
OK, I see. And IBM provided this free of
35:34
charge now because does Steve have negotiated with them?
35:43
They should provided free of charge to the Nuremberg trial
35:48
and then he planned to introduce the whole thing to the United
35:52
Nations. Recently found it and then they
35:58
could equip the United Nations. And So what happened?
36:03
Business here. So, so you've been able to
36:08
package all of this incredibly valuable information into this
36:13
exhibit. And you mentioned that it, it
36:16
was first shown outside the trial room in the hallway.
36:22
But I've it's seen many, many iterations around the world from
36:26
what I understand in the last 13 years.
36:27
So can you kind of tell us where it's been and and who's like how
36:33
participation was if there's a lot of interest there?
36:37
Yes, it's had a slow start, obviously.
36:42
As I said, a few paper posters and we showed it at regional
36:45
meetings and insiders, but always, always, people were
36:52
really, really thrilled. And then at the time, this was
37:00
around about the time that Greece had this disaster with
37:06
where they were in debt and all bankrupt and terrible and all
37:11
that. The then regional secretary for
37:14
Greece and Cyprus later on, I President Jennifer Inside said
37:22
we've got to do something. Umm, everybody's down and out.
37:30
We've got to do something now. We have got to do PR, we've got
37:33
to do something. And she got made an agreement
37:36
with the Good Institute in essence to show the exhibition
37:41
there. And we pepped everything up a
37:43
little bit and they, the people, the the local members did the
37:48
translation into Greek and they showed it there and they were so
37:54
happy with the results. No thought for unseparable
37:59
levels, those who had done the translations and helped setting
38:03
up the exhibit said. I've never felt so proud.
38:08
I learned so much about this and whose shoes I'm stepping in and
38:14
I have a totally different attitude now.
38:18
And the cohesion in the region where they had obviously been
38:22
Pickering a lot and increased and they got outside players to
38:30
come and visit and get an impression and it gave a sense
38:34
of purpose. So it had a lot of
38:37
psychologically psychological effects.
38:39
And starting from that point on, others became inspired and said
38:45
we want to do it for outreach. And then in 2017, I oht before
38:54
that I had come to the conviction that we cannot go on
38:57
with this paper, paper posters when we want to go into national
39:01
because the interest was mostly international and not Germany.
39:06
There's got to be a way to do it in several languages.
39:10
And then I assigned a designer, industrial designer, said, look,
39:16
we need an exhibition that can hold several languages, is
39:23
flexible, doesn't depend on the room, where you can handle
39:27
everything on the wall. It's freestanding, is flexible
39:31
for in every respect is attractive.
39:33
But da, da, da, da. And he came up with this, what
39:36
we call the triple design, triple because this columns that
39:41
you might have seen in some of the photos only work when you
39:45
have three panels. You know, that's the minimum,
39:48
but we've had up to 5. He came up with that and in
39:54
Milan in 2017, this premiered and it turned out beautifully.
40:01
And from then on we could accommodate any type of language
40:05
we had in Milan. We had Russian team much, much
40:10
later we had English, French and German and then the Italians did
40:16
Italian translation, so we had four again, but without Russian.
40:19
Russian was the first time in 2019 in Geneva, where they also
40:25
wanted because of Switzerland and Italian at the same time.
40:33
So we had five, I think 5, yeah. So it's a multilingual exhibit.
40:38
Yeah, you couldn't add as much as you want, you know and we had
40:42
it in Lubiana with Slovenian, OK.
40:46
So it's that's very flexible and because of the columns system
40:52
that it's stand alone, you don't have to hang everything to the
40:55
wall with and there very many venues where you couldn't do
40:59
that anyway. It never came to Canada, right?
41:02
No, not yet. There were several times that I
41:09
met with the, I met Canadian delegates to AIC in, in, in
41:16
Geneva or some other places and they said, oh, this is so
41:21
interesting, we need it, we must have it.
41:22
We do it through some very enthusiastic comments, but
41:27
obviously many other things happened and then they lost it
41:31
again. Yeah, didn't go through with it.
41:35
You need a team, you need a team of local colleagues who want to
41:40
do it and it's a lot of work. It's very rewarding and nobody
41:44
else will get it yet, but it is a lot of work and.
41:48
Anything worth in life requires hard work.
41:51
Yes. Good.
41:53
Yeah, that's something you can really underline.
41:57
And in Ottawa, I've recently contacted colleague because she
42:02
expressed interest. Whether or not that's gonna
42:06
happen, I don't know. We're ready anytime.
42:11
Well, yeah, this is something that maybe you want language
42:15
services. My my company might be
42:17
interested in helping out as well.
42:19
So if you're open to having people outside of a help out,
42:22
then you can always shoot me a line and, and we can maybe set
42:27
something up. Because I think it's very
42:28
relevant for Canada today, not just because of the the the
42:33
recent Nuremberg movie blockbuster hit that just came
42:35
out, but what's happening South of the border is very poignant
42:39
to what's happening today. And, and I saw a picture the
42:44
other day of Maduro in court and he's wearing interpretation
42:48
devices to hear what's happening then in Spanish.
42:51
So I mean, it's still happening today.
42:54
It's it's quite relevant. And I think, yeah, it should
42:56
maybe make its way to Canada. Yes, it is relevant, as you
43:01
said, for the political reasons, the situation currently, as a
43:08
reminder, and it is also relevant because we saw in very
43:17
many special tribunals on Rwanda, on Sierra Leone, on
43:23
Yugoslavia and so on, the same situations.
43:27
Hmm. It is the interpreters on many,
43:33
always many of the interpreters are victims, were victims of
43:39
exactly these people. Yeah.
43:41
And they are in the situation that they need to faithfully,
43:47
neutrally transfer the meaning of what is being said between
43:56
those called crits and the court.
44:02
You know this has not changed. No.
44:06
Absolutely. In many cases, especially in
44:09
Africa, there are no simple, there are no interpreters point
44:15
and especially not the same. Well, this, you know, what
44:18
you're telling me, reminds me about 10 years ago.
44:21
I, I don't have, we don't have to go that far here in Canada.
44:25
About 10 years ago, I was doing interpretation up north of the
44:28
country where there are a lot of Indigenous people in the
44:31
government was basically having these commissions, not done the
44:37
Truth and Reconciliation, but another one in Quebec.
44:40
And many Indigenous people were coming to talk about the abuses
44:44
that they had through their lives.
44:46
And my booth partner was much older, very experienced
44:50
interpreter, but he had worked with those communities his whole
44:53
life. And he told me that he was
44:55
actually breaking down many, many times during these hearings
44:59
because it was always people he knew and he didn't know
45:03
sometimes how much they had suffered.
45:05
So IT interpreters are always, you know, working with people
45:11
either in communities or, as you said, sometimes even victims of
45:14
these atrocities. Yeah, I remember visiting the
45:18
the Holocaust Museum in Washington, DC a few years ago.
45:21
And at the end of the the exhibit, it was really, really
45:25
well done. And at the end it said there was
45:27
a quote from from many people that are different quotes from
45:31
many people that said that this will never happen again.
45:34
And then the next room they show the genocide in Rwanda.
45:37
They show all these other more recent events that have happened
45:42
where the same thing is repeating itself.
45:44
So, yeah, I do think it's very relevant.
45:47
Well, and we should, we should try to bring it to Canada and
45:51
and other places in the world that would be interested in in
45:53
knowing more about what interpreters have to go through
45:56
with that when there are these types of of world events and
46:00
world crises. And, and really, yeah, I think
46:04
it would be a real life opener. Yes, and that's where I started
46:09
out. I wanted it to be an eye opener
46:13
on very many different levels for many different things and it
46:17
works. I've found out it works and it
46:25
it's becoming more and more relevant.
46:27
It's becoming more and it's the the one opportunity for
46:32
interpreters to tell their stories and say, you know what
46:40
is difficult for them and how they suffer and return to for
46:45
because nobody ever listens. Right.
46:48
Yeah, nobody ever listens. And that's why I also thought
46:52
that it must be this and Lundbeck trial thing because at
46:59
least in the Western world, um, that's still catches some
47:04
attention. Now we're losing this with the
47:06
next generations and so on. I know it's getting less and
47:10
less relevant or known, but still it works.
47:14
Well, like I said, they're still making blockbuster movies about
47:17
it in 2025, so maybe there is still some interest.
47:21
Yeah. Yeah, I think so too.
47:25
But on that note, thank you so much for coming on our podcast.
47:28
This is really an incredible experience.
47:30
I think our our audience is going to be really interested in
47:35
hearing what you have to say and all the contributions that
47:38
you've made for our profession. And yeah, again, thank you for
47:42
accepting our invitation. Alandy Ebony's final words.
47:46
I would also like to thank you and we're definitely going to
47:51
spread the word in order to bring this to Canada to all
47:56
parties interested and involved. And on that note, uh, thanks.
48:02
OK, thanks, Brian. Everyone don't forget like
48:05
share, subscribe and especially share this.
48:09
We're going to post it on the description below for the One
48:14
Trial 4 languages, The Pioneers of simultaneous interpreting at
48:20
Nuremberg. Alright everyone, so take care,
48:24
we'll see you next time. Thank you.
48:26
Bye. Bye.
48:27
Thank you. Bye.