When we are inviting eyewitnesses to the classroom, the learners achieve a deepened insight into the past, because in individual history, they can obtain cognitive and emotional motivations and insights into the past. Oftentimes, this is about how they experience crises, how they cope with it and which learnings they can draw from that. At the same time, a sharp line has to be drawn between the past experience and the memory of it, because the memory inevitably has to be subjectively biased through later experiences and current views and interpretations. To get into a conversation with each other, to approach one another empathically, to develop criteria for the examination of the individual stories and to conclude to a collective "story" where every individual "story" has its place, this is the goal of working with eyewitnesses within and outside of school. A focus of Christiane Bertram 's research lies in the empirical examination of the effectiveness of interviewing eye witnesses in controlled experimental conditions. Another focus is set on the conversation with and between eye witnesses. Thus the interview project "Generation 1975 - with 14 years of age into the new Germany" is not only about results for science, but - enabled by the cooperation with educational institutions such as schools, museums, and historical sites - also about impulses for public discussion.