Tag Archives: Oral History

The Subtle–and Slow–Art of Transcription

Note: This is the second in a series of posts about the 1968 Oral History Project, a collaboration between UMKC’s History Department, UMKC’s Miller Nichols Library, and KCUR. For an overview of the project, see the first post here.

A pair of headphones with tangled wires.

Freeimages.com/Raul Mendez

Part of my job in the 1968 Oral History Project is to create transcripts of each interview that we have completed. This sounds pretty straightforward: listen to the recording, write down what you hear, done. In practice, though, it’s little trickier. Sometimes people mumble, speak too quickly, or use names that I don’t recognize. Sometimes they get distracted mid-sentence, or start and stop a thought without finishing it. Other challenges are even more subtle: How do you decide which punctuation fits their phrasing best? Do you note a long pause while they’re searching for the right word? What about a long pause where the subject is wiping his eyes and trying to collect himself? (Another UMKC History Department intern, Kenan Brown, wrote a post last year about the extra challenges of transcribing a group interview.)

In transcribing oral histories, you also have to decide if you’ll include verbal ticks (“um,” “like,” “uh,” and so forth) and if you’ll write, for example, “going to” when the interviewee says “gonna.” (The answer to these, generally, is no on the first one, and yes on the second, although opinions differ. If you’d really like to get into the weeds on this, you can check out the Transcribing Style Guide from Baylor’s Institute for Oral History.)

All of this, as you might expect, makes for slow going. It seems to take about an hour to transcribe every 15 minutes of recorded interview, although a speaker who talks quickly and runs words together can take even longer. Thankfully, technology provides a bit of help. We are testing out a software called InqScribe, which allows you to use keystrokes as shortcuts to add timestamps and names, and to start, stop, and rewind the interview. For me, though, there’s also a certain benefit to this slow process. It forces me to listen in a way that we rarely do in life; I pick up on subtleties that I didn’t even understand or appreciate while I was listening closely during the interview itself.

The most powerful thing about transcribing these interviews, however, has been its influence on me as a researcher. Though most of my research has not involved oral histories (I tend to research the late 19th and early 20th century, when there weren’t many recorded interviews), I have occasionally skimmed transcripts in archives to determine whether they are useful for my research. There’s nothing wrong with this–in fact, the ability to text-search a transcript has made it much easier to access useful oral histories that might not have appeared relevant at first glance–but it’s not enough. Listening for hours, making judgments about translating the spoken word into the written word, and noting the way that emotional, fascinating stories fall flat on the page has convinced me that using oral histories as sources without listening to the audio is, at best, inadequate, and, at worst, irresponsible. Much of the power and meaning of an oral history is conveyed through the voice of the speaker. It would be a shame to treat it like just another written document.

The 1968 Oral History Project Launches

Aerial view of a group of protestors in the middle of the street.

In this photo from the 1968 Riot Collection in UMKC’s LaBudde Special Collections, protestors march down Vine at Flora and Paseo.

On April 4, 1968, in the midst of nationwide social and political turmoil, Martin Luther King, Jr., was assassinated. On April 9, the day of his funeral, Kansas City (MO) Public School officials chose not to cancel classes. In protest, students from Lincoln, Manuel, and Central High Schools marched from school to school and finally to City Hall. They were followed by police officers dressed in riot gear. Though it is unclear what prompted police officers to begin firing tear gas on the crowd, the confrontation between police and protestors escalated. By that night, the demonstration had given way to chaotic riots that lasted four days. Many buildings around 31st Street and Prospect burned, protestors and officers were injured, and six African American citizens were killed. The 1968 riots were a painful moment in Kansas City’s history, but they also raised questions and launched conversations about racial tensions and social disparities—conversations that continue today.

(For a more detailed account of these events, see Joel Rhodes’ article “It Finally Happened Here” in the April 1997 issue of the Missouri Historical Review.)

The 50th anniversary of these events this spring prompted articles and documentaries (like this one by KSHB), panels (like the “’68: The Kansas City Race Riots Then and Now” held at the Kansas City Public Library), and exhibits (like this one at the Central Branch of the Kansas City Public Library). KCUR drew attention to the collection in UMKC’s LaBudde Special Collections, and called for help identifying the subjects of the photographs. The unnamed faces and unclear contents of those photos reflected a crucial problem: we needed to do more to preserve people’s memories and perspectives. Photographs and official reports are important parts of the historical record, but so, too, are the recollections of the people who participated.

Black and white photo of a line of police officers wearsing gas masks. Two of the police officers look at the camera.

In this photograph from the 1968 Riot Collection in UMKC’s LaBudde Special Collections, police officers line up outside of City Hall wearing gas masks and carrying billy clubs.

To correct this problem, KCUR’s Director of Community Engagement Ron Jones, Miller Nichols Library Advancement Director Nicole Leone, and UMKC Assistant History Professor Sandra Enriquez teamed up to launch the 1968 Oral History Project, an effort to interview Kansas Citians who experienced or participated in the 1968 demonstrations. Their goal is not only to gather recollections of the protests, but also to understand the broader context of racial tensions and social problems in Kansas City before and after 1968. I was invited to join the project as a graduate assistant.

At our first recording session, held at the Lucile Bluford Branch of the Kansas City Public Library in May, I watched Dr. Enriquez conduct three interviews. Though I am no stranger to interviewing—my background is in newspaper journalism—I was grateful for the opportunity to observe an oral history interview. There are subtle but important differences in the historian’s approach to interviews: Where journalists are focused on the details of a specific event, historians want to pull back and get a bigger picture, understanding the context that motivated the interviewee and influenced their perspective. Reporters are often pressed for time, keeping interviews tightly focused, asking questions that they hope will provoke clear answers and interesting quotes, and focusing on how the interview relates to the story at hand. Oral historians have the luxury of more time to follow the subject down interesting trails of thought. Perhaps even more important, oral historians do not always have a clear goal for the interview, except to preserve the subject’s responses. As a result, historians cover more terrain—I find myself wondering what a future historian will curse me for not asking about during my interviews.

I conducted our second round of interviews on Saturday, June 16, at the Southeast Branch of the Kansas City Public Library. My greatest fear was that, despite my backup batteries and backup recorders, I would run into some technological problem. All went smoothly, though, and I was able to settle in to listening and asking questions. In a future post, I’ll talk more about the interview process, some of the things I am wrestling with in my role as an oral historian, and the challenges of conducting oral histories. For now, though, I will say that it is fascinating to sit and really listen to a variety of people share their overlapping but different stories. Some themes emerge, some of the same names and places come up again and again, but each person also brings a unique perspective, shaped by their families, their experiences, and by their lives after these events.

This is my first foray into oral history, and I am hooked. Maybe it’s the former journalist in me, but the opportunity to engage in a conversation about people’s memories is a powerful experience. Not only do I believe that oral histories complement existing archival sources like photographs and documents, but studying oral history has prompted me to rethink the historical sources I encounter. We often fall into the trap of taking written sources at face value, as moments somehow frozen in time. As I listen to how seamlessly our interview subjects connect the events of 1968 to the social and political struggles facing our country today, I’m struck with the knowledge that all of our experiences and memories are influenced by what came before, and will continue to impact the events that follow. Examining the complicated interaction of context, continuity, and change is what gives history its thrill.

We have conducted six interviews so far. We are hoping to interview far more to gain as much understanding as possible, and one of my jobs is to find additional interview subjects. So please: If you or someone you know would be willing to share your experiences of the 1968 protests and riots in Kansas City, I would be grateful to hear and record your stories. Please reach out to me at kbcm97@mail.umkc.edu. You can also find me on Twitter at @katebcarp.

 

LaBudde Special Collection Transcription: Learning from One and Many Voices

Coming back to work on transcriptions for LaBudde after having worked on transcriptions from interviews I had conducted for the LatinxKC project has been a little bit of an adjustment. It is interesting looking at the interviews now from the perspective of having finished the oral history class as opposed to my thoughts while I was taking the class. I remember the frustration of trying to hear and sort out many voices as opposed to just one voice, but I have now come to see the place for different approaches. Having read about the therapeutic benefits of a group interview, I can see why someone might choose the more informal round table method as a way to preserve history. I can also see the benefits of a monologue and removing some of the external sources of intimidation which might threaten to question a person’s memory. One of the primary take aways I had from the oral history course was the importance of memory and finding how events felt and were remember for individuals and communities. I have noticed that one benefit of a relaxed group is that the group self corrects some of the flows in memory in such a way that it allows for the speaker to preserve their memory of the event in a less threatened way. Although the little group may correct each other on the dates, the shared community of the group, particularly in the lesbian round table interview I’m working with, seems to be very conscious and sensitive towards the feelings and memories of the other group members. Yet, I have also found that self correction occures for individuals without the group, such as in the monologue I have transcribed. The difference is that a group self correcting often becomes chaotic and the very corrections the group wishes to impose can be lost within the jumble of words, laughter, and jesting which are usual benefits of such groups. The individual on the other hand, when self correcting, is limited to their own conflicting recollection, and although more understandable, the corrections can still result in relatively jumbled and uncertain conclusions. What the monologue style confession does give is a free flow of what the narrator finds important. I say confession, because with the existence of the microphone, the narrator is still very aware that they are speaking to other people and wants to please those listeners. They must do so, however, without those listeners being there to give supportive listening cues or to directly participate in the guiding of the conversation. So, in some ways, the monologue is the most authentic confession of the person’s memories and values of what was important. But in other ways, the lack of a living person and the smile or nod of their head, can leave narrators monologueing to expectations which are not even there.

The group interview, in contrast, would appear to have the greatest level of interruptions, tangents, and outright questioning of the narrator’s memory. Yet, the comfort of having friends and a shared sense of support and community in the group interview of the lesbian round table allowed the speakers to question each other without fear. Thus, despite the frequent outbursts of laughter and side comments, the group is comfortable and most members are able to reflect on the events and what it felt like to them.

On a more critical note, I do not believe I would prefer to conduct either of the interview forms I’ve been transcribing. The monologue, while therapeutic and potentially more comfortable for the speaker, holds potential pitfalls in the assumption that the narrator will no longer be nervous with the living person being removed and the cold inanimate judgment of the tape recorder remaining. Yet, if I had gotten an interview with the narrator (which was the case of the monologue) then a monologue might allow the narrator to speak and contradict me in a safer nonconfrontational format. This is a worthy benefit, especially if there were conflicting memories and perspectives of events and places between the interview and the monologue’s account.

I also do no believe I’d want to do the group interview either, but for different reasons. Although the group interview could be more comfortable and allow for womens voices to be presented in a more natural and freeing way, the difficulty of hearing such voices can be a problem. Although the group interview provides a great sense of the group’s relationships and community, as well as still effectively conveying key points if the narrators’ views, it can also lose the particular views and memories of some of the individual members. The group reflection allows for sparked memories to be added to the narrative and a weaving of stories and fragments into a group sense of shared experience. The individual strands and story treads which contribute to the overall weave are visible, but can be lost in the blending of so many stories and threads. I have noticed that some of the quieter narrators in the group interview tend to be overtalked and some individuals with differing perspectives can be ganged up on by more vocal or forceful speakers. Some of the softer spoken narrators can be lost in the midst of background jesting or bombastic laughter. While creating a great sense of the group and allowing a format which sparks recollections, reflections, and additional details to stories, the different individual perspectives and memory of events can be lost in a group interview. Most of this is because the additional details and freedom to jump in create overtalking. More importantly, the round table group interview was so comfortable that it allowed some narrators to jump in late in the recording, or suddenly appear on record when they had silently been participating the whole time. The increase of influencing factors and visual cues present in the round table makes an audio recording confusing to listen to. Without a visual recording included with the audio it is, at times, nearly impossible to know who and what is being talked to or about. Individual interviews with each person would have allowed for much deeper and complete interviews in many ways, esoecially for the more timid speakers. Again, the group interview does provides a sense of the groups memory and also allows for contributions to each other stories by the narrators in ways which cannot be discounted. Yet, without individual interviews, I can’t help but wonder if the stories told by the group are those the quieter members would have told on their own, or if the stronger members of the group, with the best of intentions or without even knowing it, guided the group into a memory distinctly imprinted with their leadership.

LaBudde Special Collections Transcription: Learning to Hear

Today I began two transcriptions which, though similar in focus, couldn’t have resulted in more diverse work experiences.  One was an individual monologue about the gay scene in Kansas City since the 1960s.  The other was a round table discussions of the different experiences of a group of lesbians in Kansas City.  While the monologue flowed fairly smoothly and demanded more focus on grammatical form, due to the narrators use of pauses and vocal delivery, the round table require more nuanced attention.  With frequent interruptions, laughter, and joking among the narrators as they seamlessly flowed off of and into each others conversations, I found myself needing to stop and learn the narrator’s unique voices.  While the first project demanded I try to understand the rhythm and meaning of the narrator’s delivery (to know what should be a period or comma), the other demanded I listen for distinct voice markers.

In both cases I needed to hear the individual quality of the narrator’s voice, but in different ways.  I couldn’t simply type out what I heard.  In the monologue, without first hearing the narrators rhythm and broader topic, I could very easily structure the statements incorrectly.  In the round table interview, the general lack of names being given before speaking and the boisterous free-flow of conversation, left me confused without better context.  Though both required topical context, the round table drove me to become familiar with the voices themselves.  In both transcriptions I needed to start orienting myself a few minutes into the recording, not at the beginning.  This was a new experience compared to those stories I had heard since childhood which start at, you guessed it, the beginning.  I needed to not only hear the rural style to “Pat’s” Midwestern voice as opposed to the higher pitched, New Jersey fast pace of Giselle’s voice; but I also needed to hear the more nuanced differences between the rich tones of Sue’s Davenport voice  and Bev’s Kansas City voice.

The longer I listened, over and over, I started to hear the vocal tones of different laughs and the patterns of different speakers.  I began to become familiar with their voices, to know them.  I began to really hear them.  Sometimes foreign to the historical voices of monographs and journal essays, the recordings brought be into a more challenging and more personal type of history.  It was challenging, disorienting, and a little unsettling.  But it was also beautiful.  The struggle to discover the voices of the historical agents was present, just like in other forms of research, but in new ways.  It wasn’t enough to hear the narrator’s voice, to get their words, but I had to discern their voice for its distinct qualities.  It wasn’t enough to know the words and actions of the historical agent, but what makes them different from other historical agents.  Today was a wonderful example of literally learning to hear the voices of those in the past who I had never heard before, and I can’t wait to hear what they will say next.

LaBudde

GLAMA

Reflection and Tolerance from Holocaust Education

By Elizabeth Perry

In 1975, Holocaust survivor Jack Mandelbaum was outside his home in Kansas City playing basketball with his family. A neighbor of theirs came over to chat – he was a nice guy, Jack remembered. He knew that Jack had survived the holocaust, had been in a concentration camp, and so asked, “What kind of sports did you play in the concentration camp?” Shocked, Jack looked back at him and said, “The sport was that the Nazis were trying to kill me and I was trying to stay alive.” Mandelbaum could not believe the lack of knowledge people had of what really happened, of the effects of the Holocaust. And so in 1993 he helped found the Midwest Center for Holocaust Education (MCHE) in order to spread this information. Ignorance, as Jack knew, was dangerous.

A couple of weeks ago, a story in the news brought Mandelbaum’s words back to me. On April 13, 2014, Frazier Glenn Cross drove to the Jewish Community Center, where the MCHE is located, and Village Shalom retirement community in Overland Park, where he shot and killed three people. The Overland Park police announced that this act is considered a hate crime, with Cross shouting “Heil Hitler” as he was arrested. His apparent intention in this attack was to kill Jews, but none of the three victims he shot were Jewish.

For the past three and a half months, I have been interning at the MCHE, transcribing testimonies of Holocaust survivors like Jack and helped correct transcripts of the interviews to make them available for the MCHE’s website. As I watched the news reports from the Jewish Community Center, I felt frustrated. I had spent my internship listening to survivors for whom the persecution and loss of their past is still present and haunting. Some of them are the only surviving members of their family. Each survivor interview I listened to had a standard format, ending each time with the question, “What can we learn from the Holocaust?” So many times, the interviewee said we must learn to be tolerant, respect others, and be compassionate, so that this kind of tragedy can never happen again. For a moment, as I watched the news of the shooting, I felt as if I had stepped backward and nothing had changed. But, perhaps it only proves how important it is to make the consequences of destructive hatred known. Continue reading

Reflecting on History

By Elizabeth Perry

I have been working on the survivor testimony transcripts for most of my time at MCHE, but last week I participated in something a little different. The MCHE hosts their yearly White Rose Student Essay Contest, which is open to students in 8th-12th grade in eastern Kansas and western Missouri. I got to help judge several of the essays for the contest at the 8th and 9th grade level. The specific topic of the essay changes each year, and this year the essay prompt asked students to describe the Nazis’ work at Auschwitz in preparation for the Jewish deportations from Hungary. The MCHE provides multiple sources for students to use for their essay, including survivor testimonies. The students are also required to relate the experience of a Jewish Hungarian individual or family to their research, as well as discuss how they can demonstrate what they have learned about the Holocaust.

I was impressed with the essays I got to read – successfully meeting the prompt requires a variety of historical research skills, including summarizing information comprehensively, citing sources, relating different sources to each other, and interpreting historical information. The prompt also asked the students to define an action they could take to demonstrate what they’ve learned about the Holocaust, a task that (I hope) makes them aware of how their actions can influence the world around them. The MCHE not only provides resources for Holocaust study, but also encourages discussions about the Holocaust and provides opportunities for students to learn how to use and talk about these resources.

This experience made me think about how we approach studying the Holocaust – often from either an historical or literary standpoint. The essay prompt asked for a little of both, requiring students to give historical context as well as reflect on its meanings. The first time I learned about the Holocaust, I learned about it from a literary perspective – probably like many other middle school students, I read Night by Elie Wiesel in my language arts class. About seven years later in college, I re-read Night for another class, and I was shocked at how little I remembered from such a striking book. Thinking back on it, I think that I did not have the proper historical context to understand the content of the book properly enough for the information to stick. As far as I remember, we had not yet talked about the Holocaust in my history classes, so Night was my introduction. I wish I had known more about the historical context, so maybe the book would have meant more to me at the time. I think the MCHE essay brings these together well, asking for students to research historical context as well as to reflect on the meaning of what they find.

Summer Internship Opportunity at the Midwest Center for Holocaust Education

The Midwest Center for Holocaust Education seeks a summer intern who will become familiar with local survivor testimony through the transcription of oral history videos. Additional tasks in support of the project may include conducting research to identify hard copy and web-based resources to contextualize and support each survivor story. The project requires a basic understanding of modern European and Holocaust history. A familiarity with European languages and accents is beneficial. Flexible scheduling of hours Monday-Thursday on a consistent schedule.

Interested applicants should send initial inquiries to Jessica Rockhold, Director of Education,  jessicar@mchekc.org and follow the instruction on the How to Apply page. Applications will be accepted until the position is filled.

Help and Rescue

By Elizabeth Perry

When I studied the Holocaust as an undergraduate, part of my class focused on rescuers – we particularly looked at the book Conscience and Courage: Rescuers of Jews During the Holocaust by Eva Fogelman. While many of the survivors interviewed by the Midwest Center for Holocaust Education state definitively that they received no help from non-Jews, others have some stories of receiving help. A Jewish family in Berlin received a warning from an officer just before their family was deported, enabling them to escape through Russia to Shanghai. A Hungarian Jewish family’s neighbor offered to take their daughter after the Germans invaded Hungary in order to protect her from deportation. The same family later escaped to Switzerland with 1,700 other Jews. Jewish-Hungarian lawyer Rudolf Kastner negotiated their freedom by bribing Nazi officials.

The most extensive rescue effort I found in the transcripts was a Jewish mother and son hidden for the entire war by an older Swedish man living in Berlin. The other accounts of going into hiding are less pleasant – some interviewees reported other Jews only being able to hide if they paid someone to hide them, and if they ran out of money they would be handed over to the Nazis. One survivor remembered being hidden in a tiny space under the floor of a barn with her sister – they almost drowned when the space flooded. Other events, which I would very much hesitate to call rescue efforts, affected survival. A young Polish Jew was taken out of a deportation transport group by a German officer who admired his skills as a plumber.

I can’t generalize about the attitudes of entire countries from the few survivor stories I’ve heard, but I see the fewest rescue stories in the interviews with Polish survivors. Poland indeed had one of the lowest rates of survival, despite having the highest Jewish population of any European country by far (see this graph for more info). Many of the survivors say the Poles did not want them there, that they were happy to see the Jews taken away and were irritated when a few of them tried to come home. While I am generalizing from limited sources, it’s hard not to see some connection between the attitudes of non-Jewish Poles and the survival rates of Polish Jews.

Paid Oral History Internships at the Missouri History Museum

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THE DEADLINE FOR THIS INTERNSHIP HAS PASSED

The Missouri History Museum is accepting applications from students who are interested in oral history internships (paid positions) with our Exhibitions and Research department. Two interns will be selected and will report to the Director of Exhibitions and Research.

The Missouri History Museum is developing a new space devoted to first-hand accounts of our area’s history. A major feature of The Story Center, which will open in 2016, is a theater that will be used to play films created from excerpts of longer oral histories. During the first year, a series of films will be created called “Show Me Stories.” These films will feature stories from a wide range of fascinating people. To help create these films, we need two interns capable of both conducting long-form interviews and editing those interviews into shorter presentations that will be engaging for a wide audience. These interns will help identify potential interviewees, will conduct interviews along with a videographer, and will work with the videographer and other staff to edit excerpts of the interviews into completed films. Each intern will conduct at least six oral histories over the course of the summer and will create at least two films based on these interviews.

The work schedule is flexible, with hours typically between 9:00 a.m. and 5:00 p.m., Monday through Friday. A minimum of 25 hours of work per week is required. This internship will run from May to August 2014, and the final schedule will be determined with the supervisor.

Undergraduate and graduate student will be considered. The ideal candidate will major in American Studies, History, Communication, Journalism, or other related fields. Candidates for the position should have both interviewing and editing experience

The Missouri History Museum is a nonprofit organization dedicated to deepening the understanding of past choices, present circumstances and future possibilities; strengthening the bond of community and facilitating solutions to common problems.

To apply, the applicant must provide a cover letter, and the completed intern application found at www.mohistory.org/employment. Please submit these documents by email, as well as writing samples of your work, and references to: Vicki Kaffenberger, Director of Volunteer and Interns Services, vak@mohistory.org.

“Kitchka, kitchka”

IMG_1361After working on over a dozen transcripts of Holocaust survivor interviews, I have learned a lot of information that I did not expect to learn from this experience. I know more Hebrew and more about various Jewish holidays that I ever knew before. I’ve learned how to identify Yiddish, Hebrew, and Polish words (to a certain extent). I’ve learned about branches of Zionist organizations in Eastern Europe. The context needed to accurately transcribe this information is sometimes daunting, but it is also fascinating to learn about the everyday life of pre-war Poland, Germany, and Hungary through the memories of the interviewees.

I have also learned when I am likely to have a more difficult time with a transcription. With my background in German, I am usually able to easily handle an interview full of German terms or place names. Polish, on the other hand, is not so familiar to me – often, however, the Polish mentioned in the interview is supplemented by Yiddish, which is more similar to German. Hungarian is, unfortunately, almost entirely foreign to me, but I have only worked on two interviews from Hungarian survivors. As I said before, Google Translate is a big help for identifying words or small phrases.

Sometimes, though, the path of researching a term or phrase is anything but straightforward. As I was working on an interview with a Polish survivor, he mentioned a game that he used to play when he was a child. “Kitchka,” he said – the interviewer was not sure what he meant, and as the interviewee described it, the interviewer decided it must be cricket. To check for spelling, I looked for the Polish word for cricket, and then the Yiddish word, but nothing matched. Eventually we contacted a historian Jessica knows to ask, and it turns out that “kitchka” is an obscure game particular to the area the survivor grew up in, with some similarities to cricket. No matter how much I may feel prepared for the next transcript, there is usually at least one curveball waiting for me.