Today Survivors of the Shoah Visual History Foundation, the nonprofit organization that videotapes the firsthand testimonies of Holocaust survivors and other witnesses and make them accessible for educational purposes, opened a rare collection of Sinti and Roma Holocaust survivor testimonies at the Dokumentations und Kulturzentrum Deutscher Sinti und Roma (Documentation and Culture Centre of the German Sinti and Roma) in Heidelberg.

Broken Silence, a “CINEMAX Reel Life” series of five documentary films by distinguished international directors, will debut on CINEMAX on five consecutive nights next April 15-19. This unique event is presented by Steven Spielberg and Survivors of the Shoah Visual History Foundation and produced by Academy Award Winning documentary filmmaker James Moll (the Oscar-winning HBO documentary “The Last Days”), and will debut in conjunction with Holocaust Remembrance Day, Yom Hashoah.

Survivors of the Shoah Visual History Foundation, the nonprofit organization established by Steven Spielberg to videotape the firsthand testimonies of Holocaust survivors and witnesses and make them accessible for educational purposes, is co-sponsoring legislation that will be introduced into the California State Assembly today.

The National Science Foundation awarded the Shoah Foundation a grant of $7.5 million distributed over five years, to develop speech-recognition software for cataloging more than 116,000 hours of videotaped testimonies of Holocaust survivors and eyewitnesses, whose multilingual aspect poses special research challenges. As cataloging the testimonies is time-consuming and costly, particularly when it involves interviews in other languages, the NSF grant will support the development of a computer system that should be able to review the tapes and recognize important words and phrases.

Today Survivors of the Shoah Visual History Foundation announced that Douglas Greenberg, PhD, has been named President and Chief Executive Officer. Dr. Greenberg's appointment as Shoah Foundation President and CEO will begin September 5, 2000.

Survivors of the Shoah Visual History Foundation has added Hungary to the list of countries in which eyewitness testimonies have been recorded for its Archive. The Foundation, established in 1994 by Steven Spielberg after filming Schindler's List, is videotaping the testimonies of Holocaust survivors and other witnesses around the world.

Last night, Survivors of the Shoah Visual History Foundation commemorated the recording of its 50,000th testimony with survivors and witnesses of the Holocaust. At a ceremony attended by over 400 people involved with the project, both at its Los Angeles headquarters and abroad, Shoah Foundation Founder and Chairman Steven Spielberg thanked everyone and announced the future direction of the organization. Spielberg told the group, "no one could have imagined the breadth of the undertaking we embarked on four years ago.

Survivors of the Shoah Visual History Foundation in association with Maxell Corporation of America/Hitachi Maxell LTD and Burda Media is pleased to announce the release of Survivors: Testimonies of the Holocaust. The interactive CD-ROM, narrated by Leonardo DiCaprio and Winona Ryder, incorporates visual and oral histories recorded by the Shoah Foundation. It is the first educational CD-ROM from Steven Spielberg's nonprofit foundation.

Steven Spielberg, Founder and Chairman of Survivors of the Shoah Visual History Foundation, and Foundation Directors James Moll and June Beallor, announced today that Dr. Michael Berenbaum will join Survivors of the Shoah Visual History Foundation in early January 1997 as President and CEO.