ABSTRACT
In "conventional" large-scale oral history projects, an academic designs the project to meet a specific research objective in order to create data to "present to the researcher". By contrast, the Jewish Holocaust Museum and Research Centre (JHMRC) collection is a community project that arose out of the need of survivors to speak after decades of silence. The JHMRC interviewing protocol presupposes a specific Holocaust metanarrative and this frames the choice of questions. Recording of survivor testimonies began in 1987, initially on audiocassette and from 1992 on videotape. Although it was hoped that the video testimony collection would be useful to researchers, the project has not been designed to satisfy a specific research agenda. Instead, it performs multiple purposes. On one level, its function is commemorative. It honors those murdered in the Holocaust, recalls prewar Jewish life and bequeaths a tangible legacy to survivors' families and the Jewish community as a whole.
