Shoah Foundation's Visual History Archive   Tags: humanities  

Visual History Archive

(Note: The VHA is only accessible when using a computer on the UM campus network)

The mission of the USC Shoah Foundation Institute is to overcome prejudice, intolerance, and bigotry--and the suffering they cause--through the educational use of the Foundation's visual history testimonies.

The USC Shoah Foundation Institute's Visual History Archive makes available over 52,000 video testimonies of Holocaust survivors.

You may access the archive at any time by clicking on the Visual History Archive link at left. If this is your first time using the archive, please read the Getting Started section first.

If you wish, you can elect to view one of the sample testimonies.

Note: Access to the archive and sample testimonies is available only via computers connected to the U-M Ann Arbor, Dearborn or Flint campus networks. Please see the Getting Started section for technical requirements.

Visitors: If you are planning a visit to UM to use the VHA, please see the visitor's guide above or contact us first at svha.help@umich.edu so that we can work with you ahead of time to make your visit more productive.

Steven Spielberg established the nonprofit organization, Survivors of the Shoah Visual History Foundation, in 1994, shortly after the filming of Schindler's List. The original mission of the Foundation was to document the experiences of Holocaust survivors. To this end, the Foundation set out to collect and record the testimonies of 50,000 survivors and other witnesses.

To date, the Foundation has gathered nearly 52,000 testimonies, in 32 languages, and from 56 different countries. The Foundation is interested in making these testimonies available to the public for educational purposes, in an effort to overcome prejudice, intolerance, and bigotry.

A project of this scale, would, of course, take many years to complete. In 2003, the Shoah Foundation completed the indexing of one half of the Foundation's archive. In this same year, they launched an interactive website to provide access and educational resources to people worldwide.

Thanks in part to a one million dollar grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the Shoah Foundation was able to partner with three US universities—Rice University, the University of Southern California, and Yale to provide access to the archive via Internet 2.

The University of Michigan was the first public university to partner with the Foundation, ensuring that an even greater number of individuals will have access to these important testimonials.

For further information about or help with using the Shoah Visual History Archive at the University of Michigan, please email svha.help@umich.edu.

To obtain a copy of a testimony, please contact the USC Shoah Foundation Institute directly at vhi-web@usc.edu.

See http://www.lib.umich.edu/ask for additional contact methods.

The images and testimonies in the Shoah Foundation's Visual History Archives are copyrighted by the Survivors of the Shoah Visual History Foundation. You may view and use these materials for your personal, educational and research purposes in accordance with fair-use provisions. However, you may not distribute these materials in any form.

Please see the University's Copyright Website for further information.