Recently a woman, who was working on an oral-history project in southern California, asked me in a well-meaning sort of way, why she had only just now heard from me, why hadn't I called up for an interview date before. I replied: “I don't like them. These interviews are dubious. A person becomes an object, an exploited object of pity.” She responded, with real astonishment but also with an undeniably antagonistic tone: “What, you don't want to give evidence?” Pushed into the corner, I defended myself by tipping her off to a book I wrote in German, where I clearly laid down the facts. That should be enough. But she was simply not satisfied. A videotape, she argued, would be much better than a book—the facial expressions, the gestures…. This is exactly why oral-history collecting mania makes me so suspicious. You're not there as a witness but as raw material.