Oral History

 Oral History Blog Post

Oral history is spoken history, people tell stories about their life while being recorded. I listen to many oral interviews about Holocaust survivors, how they were sent to the camp, and separated from their families. Listening to someone telling a story is fascinating, it also helps us learn how to listen and comprehend others. What I learn from these oral interviews is that listening and seeing someone speaking helps you see the facial expressions, the gestures, and the passion while interviewing that person. Besides, I only use recording someone or something on a matter that is not important. However, there is a difference while recording something that is useful and something that is not. I am not really experienced in recording oral history, but I did try it before, and I can say it was pretty amazing to listen to someone’s story. Furthermore, many devices can be used to record an interview, for example, there is an app called StoryCorps that I used to record my interview, other devices, and phone apps that could also do the work. Those devices can generally record the audio, and usually, digital information is a form in which it is mainly turned. Moreover, the storage location is the hard drive of the computer, and the microphone is the device that helps in playing the recorded sound.

I interviewed my friend Paulen because he was one of my friends I feel close to, and was comfortable enough to ask him questions. I asked him questions about how his past few days have been, what are his biggest fear, where he would like to go for this summer, what are his best memories of our friendship, and more. As I am already comfortable with my friend, the interview goes smoothly, there was no problem because the answers were direct and my questions were specific enough. Some people will find recording someone is a little difficult, but if ask only specific questions, then you can find satisfying answers. In addition, interviewing someone that is close such as family or friends can always be easy because you already know that person which is also practice when interviewing outsiders. As for my friend, we’ve been friends for 3 years now and I can see through his answers that he wants to have an enjoyable life and the passion to meet his goals one day.

Oral history is historical information that comes from the life of a real person being interviewed. It comes close to reveal someone’s identity and the importance of recording and preserving that person’s story. While the photograph is about recording the image of things that we see, and written history is based on written records or primary documented communications. The three of them to the work of collecting history of people’s stories about past and present and are still used as a method to store information for the public curiosity.