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 is looking for 40 students across the country in 7th– 11th grades representative of diverse backgrounds and academic skills who are interested in participating in its highly competitive William P. Lauder Junior Internship Program. The program provides a dynamic and unique learning opportunity to engage with testimonies – personal stories – from survivors and witnesses of genocide to develop their own voice. Read More
USC Shoah Foundation today launches its 2021-2022 Back to School package, a suite of testimony-based resources on IWitness to help educators navigate the complex issues created by the Covid-19 pandemic and surfaced by the recent upsurge in social movements demanding racial justice.
This year’s classroom activities and educator professional development modules are based on testimony from the Visual History Archive that help students to critically evaluate historical context, consider various perspectives and impacts, and reflect on personal connections. Read More
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
