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  • Jane

The Shoah Foundation (part b)

19.9.24

In the previous post I mentioned the USC Shoah Foundation founded by Steven Spielberg in 1994 (originally called 'The Survivors of the Shoah Visual History Foundation'). In the 1990s, Mum and Dad were two of the 52,000 survivors around the world who were interviewed and gave their testimonies - talking about their lives before, during, and after the Holocaust.


These VHS tapes of their testimonies sat around on mum and dad's shelf for about 20 years, and once dad died, they sat around on my shelf for another 10 years. There's a saying 'If you live long enough, you see everything. I add to that 'If you live long enough, you start getting on top of things’.


I found the following letter attached to the tapes, addressed to mum and signed by Steven Spielberg.



20 September 1996


Dear Maria Kohn,

In sharing your personal testimony as a survivor of the Holocaust, you have granted future generations the opportunity to experience a personal connection with history.

Your interview will be carefully preserved as an important part of the most comprehensive library of testimonies ever collected. Far into the future, people will be able to see a face, hear a voice, and observe a life, so that they may listen and learn, and always remember.

Thank you for your invaluable contribution, your strength, and your generosity of spirit.

All my best,


Steven Spielberg

Chairman


A number of years ago I bought the little gadget that connects my laptop to my very old VCR player. I started digitalising some of the tapes. But then the gadget stopped working. A few more years passed before I ordered a new one, worked out the software, and started the process again.


After succeeding in transferring the digitalised VHS tapes to my laptop, I discovered that I could have made my life easier by downloading all the testimony videos from ‘The Visual History Archive’ on the USC Shoah Foundation site https://sfi.usc.edu/full-length-testimonies.


So far I’ve uploaded mum’s testimonies to Youtube. I’ve yet to do dad’s. I feel happy that they are now easily available to all the family and anyone that might be interested.

Mum's interviews consist of 9 tapes. This is the link to the first one.



Letter to mum from Steven Spielberg 1996


Shipping document of VHS Videotapes sent to mum from the Shoah Foundation, 1996


VHS tapes sitting on the shelf


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