People generally get one attempt at this before deciding it doesn’t work. Usually the attempt is a direct question, asked at a bad moment, in English, about the hardest available subject.
There are better ways, and they’re worth knowing because the window doesn’t stay open indefinitely.
What closes the conversation
The direct question. “What happened to you in the war.” “Why did you leave.” Too large to answer, and it requires re-entering the material to begin.
The therapeutic register. “How did that make you feel.” For a generation that doesn’t use this vocabulary, it’s close to unanswerable and frequently sounds like an interrogation.
Anything that reads as an accusation. “Why did you never tell us.” Even asked gently, it is heard as a charge.
Bad timing. A holiday meal, in front of relatives. During a conflict. When you’ve brought a partner.
What opens it
Objects. Photographs are the best available tool. “Who is this? Where was this taken? How old were you?” A specific image is a small enough question to answer, and stories arrive attached to it without anyone having to decide to tell one.
The ordinary rather than the terrible. What the street looked like. What was for breakfast. What you did after school. What the journey was like — the food on the boat, how long, who you travelled with. People who can’t narrate an atrocity can describe a Tuesday, and the atrocity frequently arrives inside the Tuesday.
Food and cooking. An extraordinary amount of family history is stored here. Ask to be taught a dish and you’ll get, alongside it, who used to make it and where.
Their first language. Considerably more comes out. If yours is weak, this is a reason to work on it. The same effect operates in therapy.
Sideways positions. In a car. While cooking. Walking. Conversations without eye contact are easier for material like this, which is why so much of it emerges on a drive.
A task. Recording a family history, filling in a tree, or asking for help identifying people in photographs gives a legitimate reason for the conversation. Some families find this transformative — it converts an emotional request into a project.
What to expect
Fragments, not an account. Repetition of the same few stories. Long gaps between disclosures — a question asked in March answered in November, unprompted, in a car.
Contradictions. Memory is reconstructive and traumatic memory particularly so, and pressing on inconsistencies is a reliable way to end the conversation.
And sometimes a refusal. Take it. A refusal respected is a door left ajar; a refusal pressed is a door closed.
Recording it
Worth doing, with permission, and people are frequently more willing than expected — a recorder makes it a project rather than an inquisition. Several oral history organisations provide question sets designed for exactly this.
The practical point: the window closes. People who mean to do this eventually frequently don’t, and it’s one of the more common regrets in this material.
What it isn’t for
Not an apology, and not accountability. If what you actually want is acknowledgement of something they did to you, that’s a different conversation with a different structure, and it shouldn’t be smuggled inside this one — it won’t work and it will cost you both.