Questions to Ask About 9/11 in an Interview
These are questions for young people to ask about 9/11 when a school assignment means interviewing someone who remembers it, and they serve an oral history, a documentary or a family record as well. The 53 questions follow the order of a session: before you start, that morning, a group of questions to ask 9/11 survivors, responders and others who were at or near one of the sites, then the days after, the years since and looking back. Skip the survivor group for a person who watched from far away, and with someone who was there, let them decide how much of it to open.
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The questions
Each question, and why to ask it
Before you start
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.
Is it all right if I record this, now that you know who is going to hear it?
Why ask it
Name the real audience before the recorder is on: one teacher, a class, a family folder, a website. A yes to a classroom is not a yes to the internet, so if the plan changes later, go back and ask again.
How old were you in 2001, and what was your life like that year?
Why ask it
For an interviewer born after 2001, this is the question that turns a date in a textbook into a person with a job, a school or small children. An adult's memory and a child's are told differently, so write the age at the top of your notes.
That morning
Where were you on the morning of September 11, 2001?
Why ask it
Two planes struck the World Trade Center in New York, one struck the Pentagon outside Washington, and the fourth came down in a field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania. If the answer puts the person at or near one of those places, the group marked If they were there is for them. For anyone farther off, a city, a room and a job are enough for now.
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. People tend to tell these first minutes in detail, which makes this the easiest place for someone to start talking.
What did you think it was at first?
Why ask it
Many people took the first report for an accident, often a small plane off course. Ask when that explanation stopped working for them, since the moment of realising tends to be sharper in memory than the news itself.
What did you see for yourself, and what did you see only on a screen?
Why ask it
Most of the world watched it on television, and the same footage was replayed for days, so screen memory and eyewitness memory blur together over the years. Having the narrator separate the two in their own words makes the interview far more useful as a source.
What did you do in the first hour after you knew?
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.
Who was with you, and what did people say to each other?
Why ask it
Ask for the actual words if they can recall any, even one sentence from a coworker or a stranger at a bus stop. Remembered speech belongs to its moment in a way description does not, because nobody that morning talked the way people talk about it now.
If there were children around, what were they told?
Why ask it
Teachers, parents and principals each had to decide within minutes whether to switch a television on, send children home or say nothing. A student doing the interviewing can add a follow-up: what would the narrator have wanted to be told at the student's own age?
What were you supposed to be doing that Tuesday, and did any of it still happen?
Why ask it
The date fell on a Tuesday, and people in the Northeast often begin with how clear the sky was. A meeting, a school run, a flight: the plan the day replaced is the ordinary life everything else in the account is measured against. Whether the meeting went ahead anyway is a detail people seldom think to offer.
What did the rest of that day look like for you?
Why ask it
Take them through the afternoon and the evening: where they were when it got dark, who was in the room, whether anyone slept. These hours are harder to summarise than the morning, so a long pause is the person working it out and needs no second question from you.
If they were there
Before I ask about what happened where you were, how much of it are you willing to describe?
Why ask it
It hands a survivor the choice of depth before any detail has been asked for. Whatever limit they name should hold for every question in this group, including the ones you had most hoped to ask.
What was the first sign, where you were, that something was wrong?
Why ask it
From inside or nearby it was often a sound, a jolt, a smell of smoke or an alarm, noticed before anyone knew the cause. Take what is offered and do not ask the person to paint more of the scene than they choose to.
What were you told to do, and by whom?
Why ask it
Announcements, supervisors, police officers and strangers gave different instructions that morning, and people acted on whichever voice reached them. Record what was said and what they did without weighing whether it was the right call. They have had many years to do that themselves.
How did you get out or get away, and who was moving with you?
Why ask it
A route can be told step by step, a stairwell, a lobby, a street heading north, a bridge, and it keeps the account on what the person did. Ask about the people beside them, and leave what they saw on the way for them to bring up.
Did a stranger help you, or did you help someone you did not know?
Why ask it
These are often people whose names a survivor never learned and whose faces they still look for. If there is a description, a first name or a company badge, get it on the recording, because another interview somewhere may hold the other half.
How did you get home that day, and how long did it take?
Why ask it
With much of the transport shut down, people left lower Manhattan on foot over the bridges and by boat, and around Washington the roads jammed as offices emptied. The journey is a long story in its own right, and a steadier one to tell than the hours before it.
When did your family learn that you were safe?
Why ask it
For some families the gap was minutes and for others it was most of the day. Asking it from the family's side often points you to a second person worth interviewing: the wife, husband, parent or child who waited by the phone.
If you were there to work, as a responder or a volunteer, what was your job and how long did it go on?
Why ask it
Firefighters, police, medics, construction crews, nurses and people who simply turned up with food all count, and the work at the sites ran far past that first day. Keep to the task, the shifts and the crew. Their health since then is for them to mention, not for you to ask after.
When did you first go back to that place, if you have?
Why ask it
For an office worker it may have been a relocated desk weeks later, for a resident the day the street reopened, and some people have never gone back. Ask what was different about the walk in, which is easier to answer than how it felt.
Are you still in touch with anyone who was with you that day?
Why ask it
People who shared a floor, a crew or a building that day have since moved, changed jobs and retired. Some still meet each September and some have never spoken about it to one another, and either answer tells you how the person has carried the day.
How do you feel about the word survivor, and is there a word you would rather I used?
Why ask it
Some people who got out refuse the word because of those who did not, and some who lived or worked nearby were never sure it was theirs to use. Asking shows you have not come to fit them to a label, and the term they choose is the one to use in your write-up.
The days after
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. Ask for one ordinary errand from that week, a trip to a shop or a drive to work, since a small scene holds more than a summary does.
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
Looking outward lets the person describe a queue, a workplace or a street without having to report on their own state. Answers range from unusual kindness to fear and suspicion, sometimes in the same account.
What did your town or neighbourhood do in those first weeks?
Why ask it
Flags on porches, candlelight vigils, queues to give blood, collections for rescue workers: most places did something, and the local version is seldom written down anywhere. Ask which of it the narrator joined and which they only watched.
Did you see anyone blamed or singled out in the weeks after, and what did the people nearby do?
Why ask it
Muslim, Arab, Sikh and South Asian neighbours were harassed in many places, and a narrator may have been the target, a bystander or someone who knew nothing of it then. Ask for what they saw with their own eyes before you ask what they made of it.
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.
When did you go back to work or school, and what was the first day back like?
Why ask it
It asks for a date and a place, so it is easy to answer, and the detail is usually small: an empty desk, a silence over the loudspeaker, a teacher who set the lesson aside. An account from someone who was a pupil that week is the closest a student interviewer gets to their own seat in the story.
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 you through it?
Why ask it
Leave it this short so the person can name anyone or anything: a friend, a routine, a place of worship. Nothing is a legitimate answer too, and it should go on the record without an attempt to soften it.
The years since
What changed in your daily life over the following year?
Why ask it
Listen for the concrete: a job lost, a move out of the city, a longer commute through new security, a trip cancelled. One changed routine tells a reader more than a general statement about how the country changed.
Did it change where you felt safe, in a crowd, a tall building or a big city?
Why ask it
A narrator may describe years of avoiding high floors or large events, or say nothing changed at all. For anyone who was treated as a suspect in the years after, the honest answer may be about other people's fear and not their own, so leave room for that.
What was an airport like before 2001, and when did you first fly afterwards?
Why ask it
Younger interviewers have only known the security that came later, so ask for one specific trip from each side of the date. People in the United States tend to recall relatives meeting them at the gate, what stayed in their pockets and how long the line took.
Did anyone close to you join the military or go overseas in the years that followed?
Why ask it
The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq run through many families' version of this history as an enlistment, a deployment or a long absence. Record who went and when, and do not ask the narrator to defend or condemn the wars unless they open that conversation.
How was the first anniversary marked where you lived?
Why ask it
The first anniversary looked different in New York, in Washington, in a small town and abroad, so ask what happened at the narrator's own school, workplace or place of worship. The answer also shows how much of the person's memory is public commemoration and how much is their own.
What do you do on September 11 each year now?
Why ask it
Some attend a ceremony or listen to the names being read, some go to work as usual, and some keep the television off all day. Whichever it is, the person has chosen it more than twenty times, so ask when the habit started.
Have you been to one of the memorial sites?
Why ask it
There are memorials in New York, at the Pentagon and near Shanksville, and many towns have a smaller one of their own. Some people go back repeatedly and some have decided never to, so ask for the reason either way.
How did you explain it to children as they grew up?
Why ask it
Parents, teachers and older siblings all had to find words for someone with no memory of it, which is the position a young interviewer is in now. Ask what they said the first time and what they would change, and notice whether you are being given that version yourself.
Is there a sound, a kind of weather or a place that still brings the day back?
Why ask it
Low aircraft, a cloudless September morning and a particular street corner are the sort of thing people name. It is a question about the present, so a one-word answer is complete, and with a survivor you should say first that they are free to skip it.
Looking back
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.
Is there a book, a film or a photograph that gets it right, in your view?
Why ask it
The answer gives a student a source chosen by someone who was alive for it, with a reason attached. Ask what it shows that the others leave out, and write the title down exactly.
Has the way you tell this changed over the years?
Why ask it
Someone who has told this account many times often knows it has smoothed out. Asking directly gets you their own view of which parts are memory and which are retelling, and that belongs in your notes beside the account itself.
Did you believe anything on September 10 that you no longer believed a year later?
Why ask it
Framed around two dates, it lets the person answer about safety, government, faith, neighbours or nothing at all without you suggesting which. If the answer is no, ask what stayed the same, because steadiness belongs in the record too.
Is there a person from that day you still think about?
Why ask it
It may be someone they lost, a colleague they have not spoken to since, or a stranger glimpsed in the street. Let them give only a name if that is all they want to give, and ask for the spelling so the record has it right.
Did you keep anything from that time, such as a newspaper, a letter or a ticket stub?
Why ask it
A front page folded in a drawer, a work pass, a boarding card for a flight that never left: an object gives the person something to hold and talk about. Ask before you photograph it, and note where it has been kept all these years.
What do people my age usually ask you about it, and what do you wish we asked?
Why ask it
This one only works when the interviewer is young, and then it works well: the narrator gets to correct the questions a whole generation brings. Write down the question they wish for and put it to them straight away.
What would you want someone born after 2001 to understand about it?
Why ask it
Here the person stops answering you and speaks to everyone your age, which makes it a strong passage to quote. Do not steer it toward a lesson: the answer may be about ordinary life before and after and not about the events at all.
Whose account of that day do you think still needs recording?
Why ask it
A coworker from the same floor, the neighbour who drove into the city to help, a relative who was a child at the time: narrators usually know whose memory is going unrecorded. Ask whether they would make the introduction, which is how one school interview grows into a small collection.
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
Choosing Questions for the Person You Are Interviewing
If you were born after 2001
Say so at the start. Most people who remember the day are willing to explain it to someone who does not, and saying it frees you to ask what a word meant, what an airport was like or why a detail mattered. For a class assignment, pick twelve to fifteen from across the groups, and keep the three under Before you start and the very last one whatever else you drop.
If they were at or near one of the sites
The group marked If they were there is for survivors, responders and people who lived or worked close by. Put the first of them before any other, because it lets the person set how far the account will go. Keep to where they went, who was with them and what they did, and treat injuries, the dead and their own health since as theirs to raise.
If they watched from far away
Leave the survivor group out entirely. People in other states and other countries often open by apologising that they only saw it on television. Tell them that an account from a kitchen, a classroom or a night shift is as much a part of the record of that day as any other, and then ask the questions under That morning as they stand.
If they were a child in 2001
Ask what the adults did and said, since that is what a child was watching. A memory from the age of five or six may be a single picture, such as a teacher crying or a parent arriving early at the school gate, and one picture told honestly is a complete answer.
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. A school, a library or an archive may have its own release form, so ask whoever set the project what needs signing there.
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. Listening to an account like this can stay with the interviewer too, and it is easy to underestimate.
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.
- Asking someone who was a small child in 2001 where they were, as if they ought to remember.
- 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.