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Only Human: A Reflection on the Ethical and Methodological Challenges of Working with “Difficult” Stories1

As oral historians, we devote a great deal of time to painstakingly designing our projects, cognizant of the fact that our research requires us to interact with human beings in often intimate ways. For this same reason, though, our careful methodology and meticulously designed projects are constantly being tested. This article is a reflection on some of the ethical and methodological challenges that the authors faced during their life story interviews with Holocaust survivors in Montreal, Canada. In particular, it explores three major themes: the elaborate process of learning to “share authority” and build trust with interviewees; the limitations of “deep listening” and their implications; and the struggle to deal with contentious politics, such as perceived racism, that emerged out of some interviews. Reflection on these methodological and ethical challenges not only opens up a wider and important discussion among researchers about how practice relates to theory but also teaches us about our interviewees. For example, what does an interviewee's refusal to engage deeply about his or her past tell us about how they formed their identity in the aftermath of mass violence? Challenges, such as this one, are part of the story. They shed light on questions of narrative formation, the identity politics that result from survival, and how individual memory interacts with dominant narratives about atrocity. They force us to recognize that both our interviewees—and ourselves—are human beings, and not just collections of stories.