Starting the conversation about the past can sometimes be quite difficult. Everyone has a different experience, a different story. These films, produced especially for college students, show them how to listen to and record another person’s story. To do so, they use the oral history interview method. The films can be viewed from today on the YouTube channel of Erfgoed Gelderland..
These five short films explain what an oral history interview is, how to prepare and conduct it yourself, and what you can do with it. In each film, interviewer Shaima takes you through her own oral history research. She has found a mysterious object in the attic and wants to know more about it. Shaima ends up with Joop, who can tell her more about the object because he experienced the Battle of Arnhem as a child. Shaima does an oral history interview with Joop and shows how she does it.
MBO teachers can use the films in class to introduce students to the oral history interview technique. The material will help students later do their own oral history interviews on the topic of freedom. In preparation, there are several teaching modules around the theme of freedom and unfreedom. More information about the modules and the curriculum can be found on the website of the Arnhem and Nijmegen University of Applied Sciences. Would you like to start your own project with oral history? Then contact Erfgoed Gelderland.
The films are part of the Gelderland in Freedom program, made possible by the province of Gelderland. The videos were made by Erfgoed Gelderland and filmmakers Niek&Nena in cooperation with Airborne Museum ‘Hartenstein’ and other partners of the project Citizenship and Freedom: Remembrance Center Apeldoornsche Bosch, the Freedom Museum, National Shelter Museum, HAN University of Applied Sciences, ROC Nijmegen, Rijn IJssel, Graafschap College and Aventus.
ORAL HISTORY | Episode 1 What is oral history?
ORAL HISTORY | Episode 2 Preparing for the interview
ORAL HISTORY | Episode 3 Recording the interview
ORAL HISTORY | Episode 4 Interview technique
ORAL HISTORY | Episode 5 Processing and archiving the interview