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 educator workshops continue increasing in number and reach. This summer, the program Teaching with Testimony in the 21st Century convened new seminars in Budapest and Prague. In addition, another workshop in Poland is scheduled for November. The program’s offerings draw participants from all across their respective nations. Read More
Crispin Brooks, curator of USC Shoah Foundation’s Visual History Archive, will deliver a presentation at the Teaching and Working with Holocaust Testimonies Summer 2013 Workshop, to be held July 15–19 at the University of Michigan–Flint. Geared toward high school teachers, college faculty, and graduate students, the conference focuses on information literacy and critical skills in education and research involving online Holocaust survivor video testimonies. The Visual History Archive is a special focus of the event. Read More
Echoes and Reflections, a professional teacher development program on the Holocaust, has now expanded to Alaska. In April, middle and high school educators from across the state journeyed to Kodiak High School on Kodiak Island to participate. In addition to those attending in person, others in remote locations joined via video conferencing. Read More
USC Shoah Foundation recently hosted a number of eminent guests from the Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles. They included: Jerry Coben, a member of the federation’s board of directors in addition to being an emeritus member of the USC Shoah Foundation Board of Councilors; Jay Sanderson, president and chief executive officer; Andrew Cushnir, executive vice president and chief programming officer; and Shira Rosenblatt, vice president of Jewish education and engagement. Read More
The Sarah and Chaim Neuberger Holocaust Education Centre in Toronto has introduced USC Shoah Foundation’s online educational tool, IWitness, to Canadian teachers and students, marking the beginning of the Neuberger Centre’s use of IWitness as part of its educational programming. Read More
A key USC Shoah Foundation partner’s mission of upgrading public school access to broadband Internet has earned a boost from President Obama. The nonprofit organization EducationSuperHighway works to ensure that every K-12 school in the nation has the necessary capacity to fully leverage the possibilities offered by digital education and online learning. EducationSuperHighway’s advocacy was instrumental in the president’s announcement of ConnectED, an initiative to connect 99 percent of U.S. students to high-speed Internet within the next five years. Read More
