Oral history is the art of dialogue. At its core is an intergenerational encounter, an exchange with a witness to history, whose story of the past becomes a starting point – at once an inspiration and source material for further interpretation and creative work.
Within the framework of this year’s program participants talked to witnesses to history about their postwar experience related to movement of various kinds (exile, emigration, displacement). Participants were introduced to the basics of oral history: how to prepare and conduct an interview, and how to use oral testimonies in educational, research, artistic and political projects. Their interviews with witnesses of history served as a point of departure for further work on preparing a final presentation about the experience of postwar witnesses to history and of the Polin Meeting Point participants themselves in talking about the past.