Firsthand Accounts
In 2007, PBS, the Library of Congress and filmmaker Ken Burns launched a massive public-outreach campaign to capture and preserve the personal stories of American war veterans before the Greatest Generation was gone for good. Since then, the vivid recollections of thousands of people have been recorded — and not just by professional journalists. This website includes a field kit and memoir guidelines for students, relatives and volunteers. The stories featured here, which include audio recordings and a complete transcript of each interview, recount the experiences of seven U.S. soldiers who were among the first men to storm the beach at Normandy. Each is a uniquely vivid, chilling, and sometimes even humorous perspective of what it was like that summer morning 65 years ago. As one veteran recalled, "Probably the only reason I survived the assault on the beach was the Germans could fire into a massive crowd behind me and they weren't worried about the first person up ahead." It should be noted that the Veterans' History Project is not limited to World War II either. Stories from the Cold War, Korean War, Vietnam War, Persian Gulf War, and Afghanistan and Iraq conflicts are also collected.
BBC Audio: British Survivors of D-Day
See pictures of liberation at concentration camps at LIFE.com.