Questions to Ask About 9/11 in an Interview
Questions for interviewing someone about September 11, 2001, for an oral history project, a school assignment, a documentary or a family record. The order moves from the day itself to the months after and then to how the person understands it now. Some of these questions will be difficult to answer, and the notes below cover consent, pacing and when to stop.
The questions
Open any question for the note
Before we start, is there anything you would rather I did not ask about?
Why ask it
Asking first gives the person a boundary they set themselves, which makes the rest of the interview easier for both of you. It also tells you early if someone lost a person that day, which changes how you should handle every question that follows.
Where were you on the morning of September 11, 2001?
Why ask it
A plain factual opener that anyone can answer, and it establishes the distance between them and the events, which the rest of the interview depends on. Let them place themselves in a city, a room, a job, without pushing for detail yet.
How did you first hear what was happening?
Why ask it
Accounts vary widely and specifically: a phone call, a radio in a car, a television wheeled into a classroom, someone shouting in a corridor. These first minutes are usually the most clearly remembered part of the day and the easiest place for a person to start talking.
What did you do in the hour after that?
Why ask it
Asking about actions rather than feelings gives someone a way into the day without being asked to perform emotion. The answers are often practical, collecting a child, leaving a building, standing outside a shop window, and the practicality is the point.
Who were you trying to reach, and were you able to?
Why ask it
Phone networks were overwhelmed in many places, and the experience of not being able to reach someone is a large part of what people remember. Ask gently and follow their lead, because the answer sometimes involves a person who did not come home.
What did the rest of that day look like for you?
Why ask it
This lets them move at their own pace through the hours that are harder to summarise. Long pauses here are normal and should be left alone rather than filled with another question.
What do you remember about the days immediately afterwards?
Why ask it
The following week is often described in sensory and practical terms: what was closed, how quiet the sky was, what people said to strangers. These details are the ones that fade first and are the most valuable to record.
Did the day affect anyone you knew personally?
Why ask it
Asked in this open form, it lets the person decide how much to say and whether the answer is about a death, an injury, a job, or a family that moved. If the answer is yes, slow down and follow rather than continuing down your list.
How did the people around you behave that week?
Why ask it
Turning the question outward is often easier to answer than describing one's own state, and it gathers the social texture of the time. Answers range from unusual kindness to fear and suspicion, sometimes in the same account.
What were you watching or reading, and did you believe it at the time?
Why ask it
Coverage was continuous and much of the early reporting was later corrected, so people's memories of what they were told are worth recording separately from what happened. It also opens the question of rumour, which was widespread that week.
Was there a point when it stopped feeling like an emergency?
Why ask it
The answer is rarely a date and often a small moment: going back to work, a shop reopening, a normal argument about something trivial. It is a useful question because it asks for the end of something, which people are seldom invited to describe.
What was the hardest stretch for you, and when did it come?
Why ask it
For many people it was not the day itself but weeks or months later, and asking about timing gives permission to say so. Accept a short answer if that is what you get, and do not ask for elaboration on this one.
Did anything help?
Why ask it
A short, open question that lets someone name a person, a routine, a place of worship, or nothing at all. Nothing is a legitimate answer and should be recorded without an attempt to soften it.
What changed in your daily life over the following year?
Why ask it
Concrete changes are easier to describe than shifts in outlook: a job lost, a move, a family member enlisting, a longer commute through new security. These specifics carry the history better than general statements about how the country changed.
Did it change how you thought about flying, crowds, or people you did not know?
Why ask it
This is where accounts diverge most sharply, and for some people, particularly Muslim, Arab and South Asian communities, the change was in how they were treated rather than in what they feared. Ask it openly and let them define which side of it they are answering.
How was the first anniversary marked where you lived?
Why ask it
Local observance varied enormously between New York, Washington, small towns and other countries, and it is rarely documented. The answer also tells you how much of the person's memory is public commemoration and how much is their own.
Have you been to one of the memorial sites?
Why ask it
Some people have gone repeatedly, some deliberately never have, and both answers are worth understanding. Ask what the visit was like rather than whether it was moving, which invites a stock reply.
Is there something about that period that you think gets described wrongly now?
Why ask it
This invites correction of the version that has settled into documentaries and anniversary coverage, which is often flatter than what people lived through. Answers frequently concern unity, fear, or the politics of the following years.
Has the way you tell this changed over the years?
Why ask it
Most people have told this account many times and are aware it has smoothed out. Asking directly gets you their own view of which parts are memory and which are retelling, which is valuable information for anyone using the interview as a source.
What would you want someone born after 2001 to understand about it?
Why ask it
A closing question that lets the person speak to a listener rather than to you, which usually produces the clearest thing they say. Expect it to be about ordinary life before and after rather than about the events themselves.
Is there anything I have not asked that you think should be recorded?
Why ask it
Always end here. Interview outlines miss what matters most to the person being interviewed, and this question regularly produces the part they came to say.
Conducting the Interview
Practical guidance for the conversation itself
Before You Record
Explain what the interview is for and who will hear it
Say plainly whether this is for a class assignment, a family archive, a published piece or a public collection, and where it will be stored. Consent given for a school project is not consent for publication. If you plan to use excerpts, say so before you start and confirm it again afterwards.
Ask whether they lost someone before you plan your questions
An interview with a bereaved family member, a first responder, or someone who was in one of the buildings is a different interview from one about where a person was that morning. If that is the case, ask fewer questions, expect to abandon your outline, and consider whether you are the right person to be doing it at all.
Agree how to stop
Tell them they can pause, skip a question, take a break, or end the interview, and that anything already said can be removed afterwards. Say it once at the start rather than checking repeatedly during, which can feel like being managed.
Choose a quiet, private place and allow more time than you need
These conversations run long and do not respond well to a hard finish. Sit somewhere without an audience, without a clock in view, and with water available. Test any recording equipment before they arrive rather than while they wait.
During the Conversation
- Ask one question at a time and then stop talking. Silence is where the detail arrives.
- Ask about actions and specifics rather than feelings. What did you do next produces more than how did you feel.
- Do not supply words. If someone is searching for how to describe something, wait rather than offering a phrase they will then agree with.
- Do not lead. Avoid questions that assume the country came together, or that they were frightened, or that anything has healed.
- Follow their vocabulary. If they say the towers, or that day, or what happened, use their words rather than yours.
- If they become distressed, stop asking questions rather than offering comfort in a hurry. Ask whether they want to pause, and let them answer.
- Do not press for the graphic detail. If they choose to describe what they saw, listen without asking for more.
- Take a note when a name, a date or a place comes up so you can ask about it later instead of interrupting now.
Afterwards
- 1Do not leave immediately. Sit for a few minutes and let the conversation come back to ordinary ground before you go.
- 2Write down what you noticed but did not record: the room, the pauses, what they showed you, what they declined to discuss.
- 3Send the recording or the transcript if you said you would, and ask whether anything should be removed.
- 4Confirm consent again for any part you intend to publish or submit, quoting the specific passage.
- 5Check the factual details you can check, such as dates and place names, and leave uncertain memory as memory rather than correcting it in their words.
- 6If the interview was hard for you as well, say so to someone. Interviewers of traumatic events are affected by the work and usually underestimate it.
Questions to Avoid
- Anything asking them to justify or explain the politics of what followed, unless they raise it themselves.
- Requests for detail about how a person died, injuries, or what a body looked like.
- Where were you when questions asked of children who were too young to remember, presented as if they should.
- Questions built on a conclusion, such as asking how the day brought the country together.
- Comparisons with other attacks or disasters, which tend to shift the conversation away from their account.
- Asking a first responder or a survivor to speak for everyone who was there.
- Anything you would not be willing to have asked of your own family.