Director Steven Spielberg founded Survivors of the Shoah Visual History Foundation in 1994 to videotape and preserve interviews with Holocaust survivors.
By 2001, we had collected 52,000 testimonies. Our Visual History Archive now contains almost 57,000 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 2023, users viewed 223 million minutes of testimony across all our platforms, including our Visual History Archive, YouTube channel, website, and IWitness educational platform.
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 Visual History 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.
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.
USC Shoah Foundation and The Willesden Project today launch the premiere of Music Dreams, an animated short film story telling the story of Lisa Jura, a young Holocaust survivor who in 1938 escaped from Vienna to London on the Kindertransport. Read More
It was 83 years ago this week that 13-year-old Lisa Jura boarded a Kindertransport train from Vienna to London, the first step in a journey that would be memorably depicted by her daughter Mona Golabek in the acclaimed The Children of Willesden Lane books.
A series of rescue efforts organized by Sir Nicholas Winton, the Kindertransport helped nearly 10,000 Jewish children escape from Germany, Austria, and Czechoslovakia to safety in the United Kingdom. Read More
Today marks the 83rd anniversary of the arrival of the first Kindertransport to the United Kingdom. This rescue operation saved 10,000 child refugees from Nazi-occupied Europe.
As part of the commemoration, USC Shoah Foundation has produced an animated short film, “Music Dreams,” based on the story of Lisa Jura, a young Holocaust survivor who in 1938 escaped from Vienna to London on the Kindertransport. Read More
USC Shoah Foundation and Discovery Education have announced the winners of the United Kingdom category of the 2021 international Stronger Than Hate Challenge
First prize in the challenge was awarded to Elizabeth Stickland, a Year 8 (US 7th grade) student from Attleborough Academy who wrote a powerful poem about how communities can overcome prejudice. Elizabeth’s top prize is a £5,000 ($6,700) grant for her school and an iPad. Read More
A cohort of forty-one new students and five returning Junior Intern Emissaries convened virtually on November 14 for the first session of the 2021-2022 William P. Lauder Junior Internship Program.
The highly selective program provides a dynamic and unique learning opportunity for students in 7th–11th grades to engage with testimonies–personal stories–from survivors and witnesses of genocide to develop their own voice, learn to recognize the patterns and impact of hate, and gain work experience and academic and digital skills. Read More
When the Coronavirus pandemic banished students and teachers from classrooms in March 2020, Liza Manoyan scrambled to shift to distance learning. Figuring out the technology was one thing. But she faced another challenge. “There are not a lot of digital resources for teaching in Armenian,” she said. Read More
