Eyewitnesses recall the past for posterity

USC Shoah Foundation

The Institute for Visual History and Education is dedicated to making audio-visual interviews with survivors and witnesses of the Holocaust and other genocides a compelling voice for education and action.

Key Facts

The Institute houses nearly 53,000 audio-visual testimonies conducted in 62 countries and in 39 languages.

Steven Spielberg founded the institute in 1994 to videotape and preserve interviews with survivors and other witnesses of the Holocaust.

The institute holds 11 patents on digital collection management technologies.

The institute celebrated its 20th anniversary in March 2013, commemorating with the start of filming Schindler's List in Krakow, Poland.

The Shoah Foundation moved to its permanent home at the University of Southern California in January 2006.

Testimonies average over two hours in length, including personal history before, during and after the firsthand experience of genocide.

11,000 hours of video testimony have been recorded with all content indexed and searchable.

Rwandan testimonies were added to the Visual History Archive and IWitness educational website in Spring 2013.

Currently the USC Shoah Foundation employs 60 people worldwide.

Stephen D. Smith serves as executive director of the USC Shoah Foundation Institute for Visual History and Education.

SOURCE: SHOAH FOUNDATION