Grandchildren of Holocaust survivors continue to share their families’ stories.

As of 2020, only 400,000 Holocaust survivors were still alive. Archivists, historians, and family members are working to capture their stories before they’re gone. The University of Southern California’s Shoah Foundation ois taking recording these survivor testimonies one step further.

Most Holocaust survivors are in their 80s or 90s. With every year, fewer remain to tell us their stories. So museums and archives are using advanced technologies to preserve their testimonies and introduce them to new generations.

The foundation’s move to the blockchain is in partnership with Starling Lab, a nonprofit academic research center that’s on a mission to use decentralized ledgers to help preserve historical data of importance to humanity. Its lofty goal is to restore integrity both to data and to the internet itself—starting with some of the most precious information we have.

More than 2,300 testimonies collected by the Holocaust Documentation & Education Center in Dania Beach are now being added to Steven Spielberg’s USC Shoah Foundation’s Visual History Archive.

USC experts consider the importance of these photographs and paintings — bringing immediacy to history and conveying the human cost.