"Best Forgotten": Black Saturday’s Difficult Stories

Abstract

In the aftermath of the Black Saturday bushfires of February 2009, Museums Victoria established the Victorian Bushfires Collection to document the history of bushfire in Victoria. In a year-long project, three curators collected objects and oral histories reflecting a wide range of experiences and perspectives of the fires that killed 173 people, burnt 430,000 hectares of land and damaged 78 communities. The oral history interviews revealed not only the nature of catastrophic bushfire but also the nature of the human condition in the face of such a disaster.  Collecting oral histories of an event like Black Saturday highlights issues that are inherent in any oral history project but attain particular significance when working with survivors of recent fatal disasters. The Black Saturday interviews contained first-person accounts of the fire—distressing in themselves—but also revealed community conflict, contradicted accepted public narratives, awakened long-buried memories of other traumas and showed how survivors sometimes avoided, edited or reinterpreted stories to fit existing personal, political or social needs. This chapter is a personal reflection on some of the ethical and methodological questions raised by the documentation of such challenging stories. What stories do we share with the public and what do we leave untold? How do we balance competing interests in public education, community rebuildin-g and personal recovery? How do we deal with counter-histories, unintended revelations or conflicting accounts? And are there some stories that are just too ‘difficult’ to tell?