Recording of personal memories of the war with oral history method
The project “Unveiling Personal Memories on War and Detention” is intended to create a collection of video-recorded testimonies on a wide range of war experiences in Croatia proposes the use of oral history as a method to collect and open up individual memories on past traumatic events from a wide range of perspectives, including those of minorities, victims, women, war veterans…
It is our contention that revealing and disseminating the variety of perspectives on how war affects an individual will contribute to a better understanding of what the circumstances are that can lead to the collapse of civil society.
The project aims to combine the method of collecting personal memories, with innovative ICT tools in order to make these sources accessible and searchable through the Internet for a wide range of
audiences. The purpose is to record a set of 400 interviews and narratives on personal experiences on various wars and political violence in the period between 1941 and 1995 in Croatia.
The interviews will be transcribed, elaborated, translated and indexed, and an appropriate subset of the material will be stored on an open internet platform with direct access possibilities, enabling the editing, publication and streaming of interviews with advanced search options in the Croatian and English language.
Personal memories are recorded in the form of video-interview which will be accessible on an internet platform www.osobnasjecanja.hr and www.croatianmemories.org
Interviews are recorded by Documenta‘s volunteers and interviewees are given the opportunity to select one of the options regarding the degree of confidentiality of the recorded material.
Our intention is to affirm personal memories of all interested witnesses of historical events in Croatia and to preserve them from oblivion. We believe that, through recording and transferring of subjective experiences of people, it is possible to gain deeper insights into seemingly hidden aspects of political turmoil and war conflicts which had happened in these areas. Our aim is to support and strengthen personal and social processes of dealing with the past, which we find as a necessary pre-condition for building sustainable peace and stability in the society.