Lidice, Remembered

Interviewing survivors has nothing to do with interviewing.

You enter the room, make eye contact, introduce yourself, sit down, and listen. You hold open an invisible space, and invite memory to walk down its own lane. The survivors journey back, and you watch time bend as the past comes forward to meet them.

If you are observant enough, you witness the landscapes begin to fill the room, and you see the survivors’ eyes look into the eyes of their parents, sisters, brothers, and neighbors. The ghosts march in, and the atmosphere becomes alive with the memories of the living who are dead now.

That’s why it’s not just an interview.