ABSTRACT
Testimony about extreme events is a courageous effort to overcome silence. We are accustomed to think of interviews as a simple investigative tool, but interviewing Holocaust survivors as well as secondary witnesses (contemporary bystanders, or later affected persons, such as the sons and daughters of the survivors) calls for an exceptionally sensitive and nonpres-sured approach. The taping project of Yale’s Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies assigned no time limit to its interviews. Also effective was fostering a sense in the witnesses that they were being listened to, that there was a possibility of social sharing.
