Recollections Wins BAFTA Award

Tue, 11/27/2007 - 12:00am

Recollections: Eyewitnesses Remember the Holocaust, a groundbreaking DVD-ROM, won a prestigious BAFTA award at the Academy’s Children’s Awards held on Sunday, 25th November. The interactive resource received the accolade as the best in the Learning Secondary category at the awards, which celebrates the cream of children’s film and television.

This revolutionary educational tool was produced by the Holocaust Educational Trust (HET), together with the University of Southern California Shoah Foundation Institute for Visual History and Education (SFI), Film Education, and Picture Production Company (PPC).

Four years in development, Recollections integrates testimony from 18 eyewitnesses to the Holocaust, including Jewish survivors, Roma and Sinti survivors, Jehovah’s Witness survivors and political prisoners, as well as testimony from survivors of the eugenics programme. Other accounts come from rescuers and aid givers as well as a British liberator. The testimony is integrated into teaching and learning activities that not only teach students about the events of the Holocaust but reflects on the lessons that can be learnt for today. 

Recollections is tailored to the secondary school Citizenship curriculum, but can also be used within History and Religious Education and English lessons. It is the first resource here in the UK to focus solely on the interactive use of visual history testimony when teaching about the Holocaust and it will enable students to engage first hand with many different eyewitnesses. 

Karen Pollock, Chief Executive of the Holocaust Educational Trust, on accepting the award said:

"We were thrilled to be nominated for a BAFTA, and are now completely overwhelmed to receive such a prestigious award. It is a huge honour to be recognised by the Academy and gives us a deep sense of pride.

"At the Holocaust Educational Trust, we believe that the Holocaust must have a permanent place in our nation’s collective memory, and we are dedicated to combating prejudice and intolerance in all its forms. Recollections is an essential tool in ensuring that this important message is shared, and is already making a great impact in schools across the country.

"While we are grateful to all our partners: SFI, Film Education and PPC, we are particularly indebted to those eyewitnesses who feature in Recollections, and to all Holocaust Survivors who live with their painful experience every day, yet are willing and determined to keep telling people their story as a warning for the future. This award is for them."

Douglas Greenberg, Executive Director of the USC Shoah Foundation Institute commented:

“The testimonies featured in Recollections can help students identify with survivors and other witnesses of the Holocaust and become aware of how individual prejudices can have unthinkable consequences. The Institute hopes that the BAFTA award draws attention to Recollections so that educators who have yet to discover the resource will use it to teach their students about the dangers of intolerance.”

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Notes for Editors

  • To obtain a copy of Recollections:  Eyewitnesses Remember The Holocaust, please contact Aaron Kliner at akliner@theproffice.com, or 020 7383 3623.

Holocaust Educational Trust

The Holocaust Educational Trust was established in 1988. The Trust’s aim is to educate young people from every ethnic background about the Holocaust and the important lessons to be learned for today. HET works in schools, universities and in the community to raise awareness and understanding of the Holocaust, providing teacher training, an outreach programme for schools, teaching aids and resource material. HET regards one of their earliest achievements as ensuring the Holocaust formed part of the National Curriculum for History. HET continues to play a leading role in training teachers on how best to teach the Holocaust. Earlier this year, the Treasury pledged a three-year commitment to enable HET to administer a broad programme of teacher training.

In November 2005, Rt. Hon. Gordon Brown MP, Chancellor of the Exchequer, announced a Treasury grant of £1.5 million to support the HET’s Lessons from Auschwitz Project, to enable HET to facilitate visits to Auschwitz for 2 students from every school in the UK.

USC Shoah Foundation Institute

With a collection of nearly 52,000 video testimonies in 32 languages and from 56 countries, the USC Shoah Foundation Institute’s archive is the largest visual history archive in the world. The Institute interviewed Jewish survivors, homosexual survivors, Jehovah’s Witness survivors, liberators and liberation witnesses, political prisoners, rescuers and aid providers, Roma and Sinti survivors (Gypsy), survivors of Eugenics policies, and war crimes trials participants.

The Shoah Foundation Institute is part of the College of Letters, Arts and Sciences at the University of Southern California. The Institute’s mission is to overcome prejudice, intolerance, and bigotry–and the suffering they cause–through the educational use of the Institute's visual history testimonies. The Institute relies upon partnerships in the United States and around the world to provide public access to the archive and advance scholarships in many fields of inquiry. The Institute and its partners also utilize the archive to develop educational products and programs for use in many countries and languages.  

Film Education

Since 1985, Film Education has been developing the range of its resources and services to respond to the growing importance of Media Education in the National Curriculum and to meet the increasing demand for current educational material on film and film making. In supporting teachers, Film Education gives pupils the opportunity to analyse and evaluate not only film but also a wide range of Media. Study resources include film-specific CD-ROMs and educational online resources, study guides, generic study guides and videos, plus new materials in digital video editing. Film Education is a registered charity funded by the UK film industry and the BFI.

Picture Production Company

Based in London and Los Angeles, PPC has been at the forefront of entertainment and lifestyle marketing for over 20 years.

PPC is the world’s leading international producer of trailers, television and radio commercials, as well as documentaries, promos, junkets, DVD value-added material and electronic press kits. All this is complemented by our extensive digital, print design and interactive services.