Oral history puts Stolen voices online
The National Library of Australia's oral history collection on the Stolen Generations is now available online.
The Bringing Them Home Oral History Project was carried out from 1998 to 2002 to preserve the stories of Indigenous people and others involved in or affected by children being forcibly removed from their parents.
Curator Kevin Bradley says 55 of the collection's 340 interviews can now be listened to on the library's website.
"It's an incredibly emotional collection. There's an extraordinary range of stories from stories of tragedy to stories of incredible hope," he said.
"It runs the gamut. They're phenomenal people with a phenomenal spirit represented in them."
Mr Bradley says it is a very rounded history.
"The oral history project is not just interviews with people who were stolen or taken but also with the people who were part of the process, people who may have done the work, people who worked in care and looked after them," he said.
"It's a complex and well-rounded oral history collection that tells the story from all sorts of sides and I think that's its strength."
Mr Bradley says the oral histories are of enormous historical significance.
"The audio is the important part of the collection because it carries the stories and the emotions," he said.
"It's very important in the process to tell the stories and for people to be able to hear the stories."