USC Shoah Foundation Institute for Visual History and Education

"Inspired by his experience making Schindler’s List, Steven Spielberg established the Survivors of the Shoah Visual History Foundation in 1994 to gather video testimonies from survivors and other witnesses of the Holocaust. While most of those who gave testimony were Jewish survivors, the Foundation also interviewed homosexual survivors, Jehovah’s Witness survivors, liberators and liberation witnesses, political prisoners, rescuers and aid providers, Roma and Sinti (Gypsy) survivors, survivors of Eugenics policies, and war crimes trials participants. Within several years, the Foundation’s Visual History Archive held nearly 52,000 video testimonies in 32 languages, representing 56 countries; it is the largest archive of its kind in the world.

"In January 2006, the Survivors of the Shoah Visual History Foundation became part of the College of Letters, Arts & Sciences at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, where the testimonies in the Visual History Archive will be preserved in perpetuity. The change of name to the USC Shoah Foundation Institute for Visual History and Education reflects the broadened mission of the Institute: to overcome prejudice, intolerance, and bigotry—and the suffering they cause—through the educational use of the Institute’s visual history testimonies. Today the Institute reaches educators, students, researchers, and scholars on every continent, and supports efforts to collect testimony from the survivors and witnesses of other genocides."

Board of Councilors
Accessed September 2009:


 * Steven Spielberg, Honorary Chair
 * Edgar M. Bronfman, Honorary Co-chair
 * Renée Crown, Honorary Co-chair
 * Lew Wasserman, Honorary Co-chair in Memoriam
 * Wallis Annenberg
 * Russel Bernard
 * Gerald Breslauer
 * Jerome Coben
 * Stephen Cozen
 * Susan Crown
 * David Eisman
 * Phyllis Epstein
 * Emanuel Gerard
 * Andrea Gordon
 * Douglas Greenberg
 * Eric Greenberg
 * Yossie Hollander
 * Robert Katz
 * William Lauder
 * Lee Liberman
 * Skip Paul
 * Bruce Ramer
 * Harry Robinson
 * Michael Rutman
 * Mickey Shapiro
 * Jerry Speyer
 * Erna Viterbi
 * Casey Wasserman
 * Harold Williams

Founding Executive Directors
 * June Beallor
 * James Moll

Founding Advisory Committee
 * Karen Kushell
 * Branko Lustig
 * Gerald R. Molen

Contact

 * Web: http://college.usc.edu/vhi

Related Sourcewatch articles

 * Asher Miller