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.
A group of 30 second-grade children in New York City took part in a Tour for Tolerance event earlier this month that featured a virtual read-along given by famed broadcaster and Holocaust survivor Dr. Ruth Westheimer.
Delivered virtually to students at the Glenn Morris School (PS100) in Queens, New York, the program was a pilot initiative of Tour for Tolerance and USC Shoah Foundation. Read More
USC Shoah Foundation and Mona Golabek had an end-of-school-year gift for Zoomed-out teachers: a 30-minute, all-inclusive concert/history lesson/social-emotional learning tutorial with messages about learning from history, rising from injustice and overcoming adversity. Read More
USC Shoah Foundation partner and celebrated pianist Mona Golabek is scheduled to bring her livestreamed theatrical performance and concert to students and educators in New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut at two signature events later this month. Read More
Liberation75's Student Education Days are running from April 7-8, 2021, beginning at 6am PST on April 7!
Liberation75 has brought together over 15 of the world's leading Holocaust education organizations, including USC Shoah Foundation, to teach your students the important lessons of the Holocaust. Read More
USC Shoah Foundation will next week launch the U.S. premiere of The Tattooed Torah, an animated film that tells the inspirational story of a Torah rescued and restored after the Holocaust.
The film, based on Marvell Ginsburg’s beloved children’s book of the same name, recounts the true story of the rescue and restoration of a small Torah from Brno, Czechoslovakia.
In the film, the Torah is described as the most “precious possession” of the Jewish people and is a symbol that represents memories tied to cultural heritage, family, hope and resilience. Read More
In January 2017, USC Shoah Foundation launched 100 Days to Inspire Respect to provide teachers of civics, history, English and other subjects new thought-provoking resources for the first 100 days of the incoming administration. Read More
