USC Shoah Foundation’s 30 Years of Collection, Preservation, and Knowledge

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The USC Shoah Foundation Story

Our mission is to collect, preserve, and share survivor testimonies in order to increase knowledge and understanding of the Holocaust and to build a future for all that rejects antisemitism, hatred, dehumanization, and genocide.

About Us

The USC Shoah Foundation records, preserves, and shares survivor and witness testimonies so that all can learn from the past, reflect on the present, and build a better future.

The collections archive is home to 60,394 testimonies of survivors and witnesses of the Holocaust, contemporary antisemitism, the Armenian Genocide, and other mass atrocities and genocidal crimes of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. It is the largest such collection in the world.

Established in 1994, the USC Shoah Foundation found a permanent home at the University of Southern California in 2006. With survivor testimony at the center, the USC Shoah Foundation’s innovative programming, global-impact strategies, and forward-looking research and education initiatives help preserve Holocaust memory and history, confront antisemitism, and strengthen democratic values.

30 Years of Preserving History

Director Steven Spielberg founded Survivors of the Shoah Visual History Foundation in 1994 to videotape and preserve interviews with Holocaust survivors.
Founding Co-Executive Directors June Beallor and James Moll led the organization in its earliest years, guiding the collections efforts across 56 countries and in 32 languages.
By 2001, we had collected 52,000 testimonies. Our Visual History Archive now contains 60,394 searchable testimonies, the largest such collection in the world.
We started digitizing our collection in 2008 and we constantly update our preservation systems. We hold 12 patents on digital collection management technologies that we developed.
In 2024, users viewed 138 million minutes of testimony on YouTube.

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Location

Los Angeles and Washington, D.C.

In January 2006, the Shoah Foundation moved from Universal Studios to the USC campus in Los Angeles, joining the vibrant and engaged community of faculty, researchers, and students. In 2023, we opened offices at USC’s Washington, D.C., campus.

Expanding Research Horizons

Researchers, students, journalists, policymakers, storytellers, and the public turn to our Archive to enrich and expand their understanding of history. With its wealth of testimonies, tools, and resources, the Archive is vital for deepening knowledge and fostering meaningful insights.

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Photo Gallery

A walk through our history, from VHS tapes in the backlots of Universal Studios to our state-the-art technology center and elegant headquarters at USC.

Producer and Holocaust survivor Branko Lustig; Leopold Pfefferberg (Page), a Schindler Jew whose story inspired the book; and director Steven Spielberg on the set of Schindler’s List in Krakow, 1993.

Steven Spielberg and staff member Karen Kushell at the Shoah Foundation office, 1995.

Volunteers in the Shoah Foundation office on the Universal Studios lot, 1995.

Shoah Foundation staff indexing English-language testimonies, late 1990s.

The Shoah Foundation’s first feature-length documentary The Last Days wins the 1998 Academy Award for Best Documentary feature.

Holocaust survivor and producer of Schindler’s List Branko Lustig sits down with interviewer Gerald Molen to record the 50,000th Shoah Foundation testimony, 1999.

An early prototype of the interface designed to search the Visual History Archive, late 1990s.

The tape robot in the Shoah Foundation offices provides users with access to testimonies stored on large servers, 2000.

The Shoah Foundation’s Visual History in the Classroom initiative brings six educational products to 54,000 schools, reaching 1.6 million students in 11 countries, 2004.

Leaders from the Shoah Foundation, the Anti-Defamation League, and Yad Vashem join to celebrate the launch of Echoes and Reflections, a comprehensive educational resource for American high school students, 2005.

The newly-named USC Shoah Foundation Institute for Visual History and Education moves to the USC campus as part of the David and Dana Dornsife College of Letters, Arts, and Sciences, 2006.

Arrival of first shipment of Beta tapes containing survivor testimonies at the USC Shoah Foundation for archival digitizing, 2008.

The Armenian Film Foundation and Dr. J. Michael Hagopian sign a historic agreement with the Institute to digitize, preserve, and disseminate filmed interviews of survivors of the Armenian Genocide, 2010.

High school students in San Diego test a pilot version of IWitness, an online educational platform that engages students using testimony from survivors and witnesses of genocide, 2011.

USC Shoah Foundation Chief Technology Officer Sam Gustman shows visitors the technology behind the preservation and restoration of testimonies, 2012.

President Barack Obama receives the USC Shoah Foundation’s Ambassador for Humanity Award, 2014.

Video Archive and Post-Production Manager Ryan Fenton-Strauss films Holocaust survivor Kitty Hart-Moxon for the documentary One Day in Auschwitz, 2014.

Holocaust survivor Renee Firestone sits to record her Dimensions in Testimony interview, 2015. The interactive technology allows people to have a conversational experience with Holocaust survivors and other witnesses to genocide in a real-time format

xUSC Shoah Foundation founder Steven Spielberg meets with Holocaust survivors during an Institute visit to Poland in honor of the 70th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, 2015.

Dr. Richard Hovannisian, a leading scholar of the Armenian Genocide, announces the integration of the Richard G. Hovannisian Armenian Genocide Oral History Collection into the Visual History Archive, 2018.

The USC Shoah Foundation moves into the fourth floor of USC’s Leavey Library, an office space complete with an interactive lobby and Dimensions in Testimony exhibit, 2018.

USC Shoah Foundation curator Crispin Brooks interviews Holocaust survivor Marta Eva Shemesh in a renewed effort to collect testimony, February 2020.

Holocaust survivor Joe Adamson prepares for his virtual testimony interview during the COVID-19 pandemic, September 2020.

Second Gentleman Douglas Emhoff speaks with the Dimensions in Testimony interactive biography of Holocaust survivor Pinchas Gutter, 2022.

Interface of the redesigned Visual History Archive with advanced new search functions and project management tools, launched in 2022.

The USC Shoah Foundation begins to collect testimonies from survivors of the October 2023 Hamas Terrorist Attacks, 2023.

USC President Dr. Carol Folt bestows the University Medallion upon Holocaust survivors who have entrusted their testimonies to the USC Shoah Foundation, 2024.

Mickey Shapiro, long-time supporter and member of the USC Shoah Foundation executive committee of the Board of Councilors, makes a $30 million gift to our endowment campaign in 2025.

Viewers around the world watched 138 million minutes of testimony on YouTube in 2024. Explore some of the interviews they found most compelling.

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Top News Stories

When Students Come Back: What a Traveling Exhibit Reveals About Learning Through Testimony

The class visit was over. But some students kept coming back.At Rye Country Day School in New York, students who visited the Common Circles Experience with their classes returned to the exhibit on their own. Some spent additional time exploring its materials. Others came back with friends and family. And some returned to continue interacting with the USC Shoah Foundation interactive biographies of Holocaust survivor Anita Lasker-Wallfisch and Jewish American liberator Alan Moskin, asking more questions and spending more time with their testimony. Read More

USC Shoah Foundation Convenes Inaugural Countering Antisemitism Summit at Capital Campus

On April 30, the USC Shoah Foundation convened its first Countering Antisemitism Summit at USC’s Capital Campus in Washington, D.C., uniting policymakers, scholars, diplomats, and civil society leaders for a bipartisan conversation on one of the most urgent challenges facing democratic societies today.Titled “Countering Antisemitism in a Time of Distortion,” the summit marked a significant moment for the organization, expanding its role both as a leader in testimony preservation and education and as a convener of leaders working to confront antisemitism in real time. Read More

Longtime Holocaust remembrance leader bolsters USC Shoah Foundation’s efforts with $30 million gift

The university celebrated Shapiro’s gift at an event outside Leavey Library on USC’s University Park Campus, the home of the USC Shoah Foundation. As part of the gift, the foundation’s space at the library has been renamed the Mickey Shapiro Headquarters of the USC Shoah Foundation. Read More

AJC, USC Shoah Foundation Partner to Document and Map Global Antisemitism

American Jewish Committee (AJC) and the USC Shoah Foundation announced today at AJC Global Forum their newly formed partnership to give voice to, document, and map modern-day antisemitism around the world. Read More

The USC Shoah Foundation Launches Countering Antisemitism Laboratory

With antisemitic harassment and violence surging ferociously around the globe, the USC Shoah Foundation establishes a Countering Antisemitism Laboratory to research and combat one of the world's most virulent hatreds. The USC Shoah Foundation seeks an inaugural director for the Countering Antisemitism Laboratory, which will work with scholars, journalists, policymakers, and other leadership groups to address all forms of antisemitism. The Laboratory will house a major collection of testimonies from survivors of antisemitic violence, training programs centered on understanding and responding to antisemitism, an initiative focused on digital antisemitism and Holocaust denial, and other practical research efforts. Read More

USC Shoah Foundation Recording, Preserving October 7 Survivor Testimony

The USC Shoah Foundation is recording testimonies of survivors of the Hamas terror attacks in Israel as part of a major initiative launched days after October 7, when 1,400 people were massacred and some 250 taken hostage. Read More

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