In April 1994, the genocide of the Rwandan Tutsis officially began, even though the persecution and killing campaign had gone on for decades. In 100 days, close to 1 million women, children and men were slaughtered and tortured to death with machetes, metal sticks and knives. The conflict gained momentum when Belgium became the colonial power in Rwanda after Germany’s defeat in World War I, and further highlighted and reinforced the distinctions between Hutus and Tutsis.

J. Michael Hagopian’s collection of 400 interviews of Armenian Genocide survivors and witnesses drew one step closer to being fully integrated into the Visual History Archive today. The Armenian Film Foundation officially handed over the digitized collection to USC Shoah Foundation, where the process of cataloguing and indexing will begin.