Judith Monachi­na was a com­mu­ni­ty jour­nal­ist when she began inter­view­ing peo­ple about the Ital­ian Holo­caust, in 2000. She was award­ed a Ful­bright research fel­low­ship (jour­nal­ism) to study in Milan, in 2007, at the Cen­ter for Con­tem­po­rary Jew­ish Doc­u­men­ta­tion. While doing research for the book, she began to study oral his­to­ry prac­tice and was a fel­low at the Colum­bia Uni­ver­si­ty Oral His­to­ry Sum­mer Insti­tute. In 2016, she became found­ing direc­tor of the Housaton­ic Her­itage Oral His­to­ry Cen­ter at Berk­shire Com­mu­ni­ty College.