Like memory itself, the video testimony within the Visual History Archive is not permanent. Data degradation resulting from the gradual decay of storage media can result in the eventual breakdown of video and audio, rendering a testimony worthless, even in digital form. The Institute’s newly-launched Forever Fund will provide means to ensure that testimonies will live on in whatever form the future may necessitate.

Throughout the nearly 150 interviews she conducted of Holocaust survivors for USC Shoah Foundation, Nancy Fisher’s philosophy was simple: “I did my best to be a human being connecting with another human being.”

In October 1942, when Nathan Drew and his wife Helen heard rumors that Nazis would liquidate the Łomźa Ghetto in Poland in which they lived, they escaped to Warsaw, avoiding by mere hours the forced removal of over 8,000 Jews to the Zambrow transit camp. In Warsaw, Nathan and Helen used false identification documents to live in the open as “counterfeit Poles,” hiding their Jewish heritage while navigating the harsh realities of Nazi occupation.

When Marc Haves was growing up during the ’50s and ’60s in the Five Towns, a predominantly Jewish area on Long Island, one subject didn’t seem to come up during family gatherings, or in the history lessons at school, or even during conversations at his reform temple.

Like many who support USC Shoah Foundation, Linda Wimmer was drawn to the stories of survivors and the way the Institute gives their stories both a home and a platform from which to be shared. However, her connection to the Institute is more profound than passive appreciation. In 1995, Linda’s husband Jim shared with her an article in their local Allentown, Pennsylvania, newspaper discussing Steven Spielberg’s mission to collect testimony of Holocaust survivors and witnesses. Linda immediately knew that she wanted to participate.

For USC Shoah Foundation Next Generation Council member Jodi Harris, contributing to the Institute is a family affair: Her mother was a docent at the first iteration of the Institute in the mid-1990s, leading tours of the trailers in which the Institute was initially housed on the backlot of Universal Studios.

Sam Pond, a member of USC Shoah Foundation’s Next Generation Council, has been a firm advocate for the Institute since being introduced to its work almost 15 years ago. “I’m not Jewish, but I hate hatred, and dislike ignorance,” Pond said, discussing his draw to the Institute’s work. “People don’t really understand how insidious antisemitism is. It’s growing worldwide, especially in the West.”

When Nancy Fudem and her son Jonathan were contemplating ways to honor the memory of Nancy’s husband Frank, a prominent San Francisco commercial real estate broker who passed away in 2012, they considered some of his lifelong passions: family, education, and his Jewish faith. His wide range of interests, from spy novels to economic theory to Talmud study, indicated a deep and curious mind that valued the power of knowledge. “Frank credited much of his success to his start as a scholarship student at York Country Day School, and was always passionate about education,” Nancy said.