REPORT PRESENTED BY MS, SUE ELLEN WEBBER

Since my appointment in June as the Commission’s staff assistant in charge of oral history, I have been responsible for initiating the process of recording testimonies from famine survivors and eyewitnesses all over North America. My duties so far have included developing techniques for locating and contacting potential witnesses; devis¬ing a methodology for interviewing willing witnesses that enables us to obtain the greatest possible amount of information from each one with the least amount of stress; and generally representing this aspect of the Commission’s work in each city I visit

To date, I have visited nine different areas with high concentrations of Ukrainians, conducted interviews in six of these cities, and collected a total of twenty-one inter¬views. The areas are greater metropolitan Washington, D.C.; Toronto, Ontario; Detroit; Hartford, Connecticut; Stamford, Connecticut; Youngstown, Ohio; Baltimore, Maryland; and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Still on the agenda are the following cities: Syracuse, Albany, Troy, Glen Spey, and New York, New York; Bound Brook and Tren¬ton, New Jersey; Philadelphia; Hamilton, Windsor, St. Catherines, Ontario and Montreal, Quebec; Vancouver, British Columbia; Chicago; Cleveland; San Francisco; Los Angeles; San Diego; Phoenix and Tucson, Arizona; and possibly northern Florida.

In a number of cities, I have established contacts through voluntary witnesses who have notified us of their willingness to testify. In other cities, I rely on the assistance of community leaders (notably Ukrainian Orthodox clergy, as the church remains the center of Ukrainian community life) or friends who volunteer their time to seek out witnesses in their communities. These personal contacts yield the highest number of willing witnesses, as they establish a degree of familiarity and trust between the inter¬viewer and subject.

I also have made a great deal of contacts through Ukrainian heritage festivals. These are local events that bring together all the Ukrainians in a given region for a weekend of exhibits and entertainment. I have a small exhibit that I set up and tend during the festival. In this way I am able to publicize the Commission while estab¬lishing new contacts. I have been to six such festivals so far.

Out of all the contacts I make, about two-thirds of the witnesses decline to inter¬view. Among the reasons they give are the following, in order of frequency:

1) Fear of Soviet reprisal against relatives still living in the U.S.S.R.;
2) The events are too traumatic to recall;
3) The feeling that what they have to say is “uninteresting” or “not worthwhile”; and
4) Poor health.

We accept these as valid reasons and do not pressure anyone into granting an inter¬view.

Having arrived in a city, I schedule interviews at the convenience of the witness, usually in their home. (I usually stay with Ukrainian families or with friends to keep down Commission expenses.) The interviews are conducted rather informally, in a conversational maimer designed to make the witness feel as comfortable as possible. I have memorized a set of questions pertaining to the famine, which I interject when ap-