Oral Histories

Long-Suppressed Oral Histories Corroborate Demolitions

On August 12, 2005, the New York Times announced the release of more than 12,000 pages of oral histories in the form of transcripts of interviews with 503 firefighters and emergency medical responders. The interviews were conducted between October of 2001 and January of 2002 under the order of New York City's fire commissioner at the time of the attack, Thomas Von Essen, who wanted to preserve first-hand accounts of the attack. 1

The New York Times published the oral histories, and provides an index of PDFs of the interviews here. 2 The Times converted a subset of the interviews into text files. 3 The following pages excerpt passages from the accounts pertaining to the observation of aspects of the destruction of the Twin Towers.*

The accounts also contain numerous descriptions of advanced warnings that WTC 7 would collapse.

* This compilation was facilitated by David Ray Griffin, the author of The 9/11 Commission Report: Omissions and Distortions who in turn credits Matthew Everett, author of Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and 9/11: A Scandal Beyond What Has Been Seen Before for locating many of the passages excerpted here.

References