Introduction

Eight decades have passed since the end of World War II. The generations who experienced the war are also passing away, and their memories may die along with them. To help preserve the reality of life during wartime, this website aims to collect the testimony of those who lived through the war years. While secondary sources are useful to learn the larger historical context, primary documents, both oral and written, are invaluable for a full understanding of the war at the level of each individual.

Each of the 177 individual posts in this website is the text of an interview with a survivor of World War II, describing his or her personal experiences. Each interview was conducted by a Grade 11 student, usually 16 years old. These took place during the years from 1984 to 2020, including 177 students who graduated between 1985 and 2022. Students chose to present the interview results in a question-and-answer format or as continuous narrative, either first-person or third-person.

Aside from the views expressed by the interview subjects themselves, and reactions by the student interviewers, the content of each post is completely unfiltered. No commentary or analysis is included, nor any historical context. These are the voices of eyewitnesses, speaking to us from the past.

These transcribed interviews are a precious historical resource, especially since the great majority of the interview subjects have already died. Sadly, some of the interviewers have also died in the intervening decades since they were high school students.