Ways to Expand the Current Research Project on Holocaust

There aren't many participants available for interviews for this research on the Holocaust. However, for the few participants available, it would be prudent to exploit every avenue to get the desired numbers to involve in the study. Today, with the youngest survivors aged over 71 years, some of the places to get these survivors will be in memorials of Holocaust survivor. For this research, we will involve in visiting two of the main memorial centers to interview the survivors. The monument centers to be visited will be Battle of the Bulge Association Inc. and the American Defenders of Bataan and Corregidor Memorial Society, both in the state of Virginia.

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In expanding this research, we will need an interview of 10 survivors from the Battle of the Bulge Association (BOBA) and ten others from the American Defenders of Bataan and Corregidor (ADBC). Due to the dwindling numbers of survivors in these associations, working with ten would give a relatively accurate adventure into the transpiration of the Holocaust events. Interviews with these survivors should take a maximum of two days since there often is less time to indulge them into conversations when in these associations. There is, therefore, need to maximize the time to involve them and exploit possible avenues to get the most information from them. As a result, there needs to be an interviewer for each of these survivors. We, therefore, will require ten interviewers conducting interviews in the ADBC and ten others in BOBA. In the Battle of the Bulge Association, the target group will be the veteran members who received a battle star from the Ardennes campaign.

The interviewers, apart from having oral interviews with the participants, will also inquire about the archives in the memorial centers to beef up the content by the participants. To get this information, they will be required to interview, further, the guides in the center. For each center, the study will need at least five separate information sets from the guides. Therefore, the ten interviewers will team up in pairs and interact with one guide. The additional information will act as control information that will be used to ascertain the events as narrated by the veterans. Additionally, it will be used to find a similarity in the narrations and provide a clear indication of what transpired during the Holocaust.

The correspondents of the study will be provided with general questions for the veteran participants and a structured questionnaire to use with the center attendants. All the questions will be responded to orally. They, the interviewers, will be provided tape recorders. The reason for the tape recorders will be to get as many narrations as possible from both the interviewees. Additionally, it will be helpful to allow the veterans to give In-depth descriptions to enable mentions of essential points for the study without making them feel like they are being interrogated. Therefore, we would wish not to restrict the respondents, especially the survivors, to a particular structure of response. To the center monitors, the recorders will be needed to save on the time that could be wasted writing down their responses since their questionnaires will be relatively extensive compared to the veterans' questions. Furthermore, writing down answers will be slow and time-consuming.

Since the study will be expanding and there will be limited time for conduction, the interviewers that will assist in collecting the data will be recruited. The study will require inquisitive individuals to help with the interviews. The curious nature will benefit the research while dealing with the center guides to probe more on the events that took place during the Holocaust. In ADBC, for example, there are relatives of the veterans that will be taking the interviewers through the experiences. They, the interviewers, will, therefore, need to be sharp and inquire more to engage them and get the most out of the interviews. The individuals will also be required to be patient and accommodating. We will expect the veterans to feel comfortable before these interviewers and have the urge to share their experiences with them so that the narrations can have more content.

There will need to be reconnaissance of the two centers before sending the interviewers. During the observation, four individuals will pair up and visit either center. They will be required to introduce the study and its aim, book prior appointments with the guides and asses the environment before the survey sets off. Additionally, they will request the center guides to prepare the ten veterans for interview by our team on arrival.

From the websites of the two centers, one significant point to note, and which could give our research an edge entails supporting their course by providing donations. These donations will help the study personnel to be received well and act as a show of goodwill towards the survivors. Additionally, it will create a good rapport with their leaders to allow them to share with our team. The team of four that will conduct the reconnaissance will, therefore, offer the donations on behalf of the study and set the ground for it to pick up.

MATERIALS REQUIRED

• Tape recorder procurement. We shall procure twenty tape recorders.
• Advertisements. The study will require adverts to recruit the interviewers and transcribers. The target group for interviewing shall comprise of college students, especially History students, with background information on World War 2. There will be two types of advertisements; print media and posts on social media. For social media, the platforms to be used will include Facebook Whatsapp and Twitter since they record the highest traffic of users. The second form of advert shall involve the use of print media in the way of posters. We shall print out fifty posters to be shared in five local colleges.
• Questionnaire printout. Two types of questionnaires will be printed. The first type will be a short questionnaire with general questions for the veterans. The second one will be the detailed, structured questionnaire for the center guides. We shall print out 20 short questionnaires and 20 of the long ones.
• Transcription tool printout. The transcription tools will also be printed in two forms. The first will be for transcribing data from the veterans while the second will be for transcribing data from the guides. They will be structured in the form of multiple-choice questions, except for a few variables that will require open-ended structures. The questions, therefore, will be structured in line with the aim of the study.
• Commuter allowances. The first group of four who will visit the centers for reconnaissance will be reimbursed fares to and from those centers. The second team, comprising of the twenty interviewers will also be reimbursed the fares appropriately.
• Interviewers' allowances. Each interviewer will be compensated a benefit by the study coordinators for their sacrifices to assist the study in data collection.
• Transcribers' allowances. Transcribers will also be compensated for their efforts, however, using a different rate from the interviewers' rate. They will be compensated according to the number of transcriptions that they make. The study will work with five transcribers. One will handle five of the recorded interviews of the guides while the remaining four will share the discussions of the twenty veterans.
• Training. The training will be of two forms. The first training will be for correspondents' of the study. Having recruited college students, they will be taken through the questionnaires. The training will aim to familiarise with the questions and get the conversation flowing with the respondents at best.

The second training will be for transcribers of the data from tape recorders to structured response that can be analyzed. They will be taken through the transcription tool and trained on how to pick the most important points into the tools.

The budget for the study will flow as follows:

While advertising, we shall give directions to interested participants on how to reach the study coordinators and book an interview. On the print media, there shall be Whatsapp cell numbers to call, Facebook accounts to inbox and twitter handles to reach out. The social media shall act as an avenue to communicate through, rather than advertising. However, without ignoring the impact that social media has, we shall use the platform to advertise for interviews as well. The strategy behind print media advertising shall rely on placing the posters at vantage points to be noticed quickly. Our target lies in History students in colleges. Therefore, we shall post the hardcopy adverts on notice boards close to the faculty dealing with history in five selected colleges.

For interviewers, once the interested participants contact the study officials, there shall be vetting, which shall sieve out the unwanted characteristics of interviewers and remain with those having desired characteristics. The study officials will inquire about the depth of knowledge they have on World War 2 and monitor their ability to communicate as well as their desire to work in the study. Afterward, the chosen group of interviewers shall be taken through training on how to handle the respondents. The training will focus on the need to ask the right questions and probe more about the needed points. The interviewers will also need to exercise patience to allow the respondents give full information as required.

For transcribers, interested participants shall be contacted for an interview as well. During vetting, the aim shall lie on checking whether they can draft a solid point out of a conversation. They shall be given sample recordings to decipher and translate into point forms. The ones with high accuracy in the exercise shall move forwards to training, where they shall be provided the desired transcription tools and the points that they need to note. The transcription shall be divided into two groups, with one individual trained on the necessary aspects from the center guides while the remaining five getting taught on deciphering recordings from the veterans' group. Transcribers' group shall, however, be contacted after the interviewers deliver the full records.

After transcription, the next phase of the research shall involve analysis of the outcome. The interest of the study is to contrast the lives that the veterans had before the Holocaust and the life they led after. It should be noticed whether there was a difference in how people lived after World War 2. Further, the study shall aim at measuring how much the difference has been for these survivors of the Holocaust. The hypothesis for the study, therefore, will be that there is no difference in lifestyle for survivors of the World War 2.