What is the Visual History Archive?

The Visual History Archive (VHA) is the search tool that allows users to search and browse the entire collection of video testimonies gathered by the USC Shoah Foundation. It is based here at USC.

How does the VHA work?

Please consult the VHA User Manual ( VHA_user_manual_030813.pdf).

Is the VHA on the internet?

No, the VHA is not accessible over the public internet. Instead it is made available via Internet2, a secure broadband network shared by a consortium of educational and research institutions. Institutions that are part of Internet2 (or its equivalent) may subscribe to the archive. Currently, the VHA can be viewed at these locations worldwide.

I am a USC student (staff/faculty member). How can I watch a testimony?

See Search the VHA.

I am not a USC student (staff/faculty member). How can I watch a testimony?

See Search the VHA.

How can I get a copy of a testimony?

See VHA Copies & Downloads.

How many interviews are there in the VHA?

Over 51,000 video interviews. In total the VHA contains approximately 105,000 hours, or 12 years, of continuous video.

When did you conduct the interviews?

Between 1994 and 1999.

Where were they collected?

In 56 different countries. See Collecting Interviews Worldwide.

Did you only interview in English?

No, we took interviews in 32 different languages. English was the largest language, with close to 25,000 interviews. See Collecting Interviews Worldwide.

Did you only interview Jewish Holocaust survivors?

No, the VHA contains nine different interviewee experience groups:

• Jewish survivors (approx. 95%)
• homosexual survivors
• Jehovah's Witnesses
• liberators and liberation witnesses
• political prisoners
• rescue and aid providers
• Sinti and Roma survivors
• survivor of eugenics policies
• war crimes trials participants

How does the USC Shoah Foundation define the term “survivor”?

We have used the following definition in our collection:

A survivor is anyone who suffered and survived persecution for racial, religious, sexual, physical or political reasons while under Nazi or Axis control between 1933 and May 8, 1945; or who was forced to live clandestinely; or to flee Nazi or Axis onslaught during the war in order to avoid imminent persecution.

A person is a survivor if he/she was alive at the point of liberation and/or on May 8, 1945. A person is a survivor if he/she died before May 8, 1945, but successfully fled from German or Axis countries.

This definition would apply, for instance, to German Jews fleeing from Germany before the war, as well as to Jews in eastern Poland who fled to Soviet territory after September 1, 1939, but before the German invasion of the USSR in June 1941. It would also include non-Jewish groups of victims such as homosexuals, Jehovah's Witnesses, the physically and mentally disabled, Sinti and Roma, political prisoners and non-Jewish Poles, such as intellectuals and clergymen.

Individuals from the following Axis countries would be classified as survivors if they suffered persecution after the following dates (when anti-Jewish legislation appeared and not when each country took up official membership in the Axis):

• Germany - 1933
• Austria - 1938
• Italy - 1938
• Sudetenland - 1938
• Romania - 1939
• Hungary - 1939
• Bulgaria - 1940
• Czechoslovakia - 1939
• Yugoslavia - 1941

Which is the longest interview in the VHA?

At just under 16 hours, the longest interview in the VHA is that of Mosheh Beyski (interview code 23848, Hebrew), a Schindler survivor and later a supreme court judge in Israel.

Who is the oldest interviewee in the VHA?

The oldest interviewee, born in 1892, is Frida Rosenbaum (interview code 7335, Dutch). She was 103 when she gave her testimony.

The most popular year of birth for VHA interviewees is 1924.

In terms of age distribution, there is an equal split: roughly one third were adults, one third teenagers, and one third children when the war began in 1939.

How were the interviews conducted?

See The Interview.

How is the archive preserved?

See Preserving the Archive.

Do you have transcripts for the testimonies?

No, instead of transcribing, we cataloged and indexed them fully.

How did you catalog and index the testimonies?

The USC Shoah Foundation created proprietary software for cataloging and indexing. We devised indexing terms to meet the needs of the collection’s content and organized them into a Thesaurus conforming to standard practice. The Thesaurus evolved over time and grew in volume as the testimonies were indexed. It currently contains more than 55,000 terms, some 90% of which are geographic in nature.

Cataloging refers to the data-entry of the pre-interview questionnaires (PIQs), documents filled out by the interviewer and interviewee before each interview that provide basic biographical information about the interviewee and his/her family.

Indexing refers to the minute-by-minute indexing of the video interviews. To do this, each interview was divided into one-minute segments  Then, indexers assigned terms for times, places, people, and experiences directly to digital time codes within testimonies where those topics were discussed - in a similar way to book index entries that specify the page numbers where topics are covered.

For more details, see Cataloguing and Indexing.

Are there other places that have interviewed Holocaust survivors?

Yes, many of them. A list of them can be found here.

Is the USC Shoah Foundation still collecting interviews?

Yes, the USC Shoah Foundation is conducting a small number of interviews with Holocaust witnesses in 2012-13. Other organizations that may still be recording Holocaust survivors and witnesss include:

Association of Holocaust Organizations
(516) 582-4571
P.O. Box  230317
Hollis , NY  11423
e-mail: ahoinfo@att.net
website: www.ahoinfo.org

Florida  Holocaust  Museum
(727) 820-0100
55 Fifth Street South
St. Petersburg , FL  33701
e-mail:  smgolman@flholocaustmuseum.org
website:  www.flholocaustmuseum.org

Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies
(203) 432-1879
Yale   University - Sterling Memorial Library
New Haven, CT  06520-8240
e-mail: fortunoff.archive@yale.edu
website:  www.library.yale.edu/testimonies

Holocaust Documentation and Education Center, Inc.
(954) 929-5635
2031 Harrison St.
Hollywood , FL  33020
e-mail:  infor@hdec.org
website:  www.hdec.org

Holocaust Museum Houston
(713) 942-8000
5401 Caroline St.
Houston , TX  77004
e-mail:  smyers@hmh.org
website:  www.hmh.org

Jewish Heritage Project (survivor must sponsor)
(212) 925-9067
150 Franklin Street, #1W
New York , New York  10013
e-mail:  alanadelson@verizon.net

Oral History Project - Holocaust Center of Northern California 
(650) 570-6382
e-mail: agsaldinger@hcnc.org
website:  www.hcnc.org

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
(202) 488-0400
100 Raoul Wallenberg Place SW
Washington , DC  20024-2156
Program Coordinator in Oral History: Ina Navazelskis, (202) 488-6571, inavazelskis@ushmm.org

Virginia  Holocaust  Museum
(804) 257-5400
2000 East Cary St.
Richmond , Virginia  23223
e-mail:  info@va-holocaust.com
website:  www.va-holocaust.com

Yad Vashem - Jerusalem
972-2-644-3400
e-mail:  general.information@yadvashem.org.il
website:  www.yadvashem.org

More information about the Visual History Archive can be found here