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LOS ANGELES, Jan. 14, 2004 PRNewswire/ -- After a decade of remarkable accomplishment, the mission of the Shoah Foundation is as urgent as ever.
Since 1994, the Shoah Foundation has not only amassed the largest collection of visual history testimonies in the world, but has shifted its focus to using these testimonies to educate young people about the dangers of bias and intolerance.
"At a moment in history when many of us around the world feel in danger of being overwhelmed by acts of fanaticism and intolerance, Holocaust survivors and other witnesses in the archive have an important and powerful message to share," said Douglas Greenberg, Shoah Foundation president and CEO. "When young people see the faces and hear the voices of men and women who suffered what the rest of us can only imagine, they make the connection between history and the moral choices they confront in their own lives."
Steven Spielberg established the Shoah Foundation after filming
Schindler's List, with the urgent goal of videotaping the testimonies
of 50,000 Holocaust survivors and witnesses before it was too
late. The archive now contains nearly 52,000 videotaped interviews
collected in 56 countries and
recorded in 32 languages. Having gathered the collection by 2000,
the Foundation then adopted a new mission to overcome prejudice,
intolerance, and bigotry -- and the suffering they cause -- through
the educational use of the Foundation's visual history testimonies.
Educational Outreach:
In the last three years, the Foundation advanced its mission by expanding its international educational outreach. The Shoah Foundation:
-- Established 33 visual history collections, ranging
in size from
10-2,000 testimonies in 14 countries, and 9 US states.
-- Produced 10 documentaries that have been broadcast
in 38 countries,
and subtitled into 19 languages.
-- Created 15 educational tools that are available in
11,000 schools
around the world, reaching 1.5 million students.
-- Screened documentaries in 40 countries for 100,000
students,
educators, and members of the general public.
-- Supported 50 teacher training workshops and other educational
programs
for more than 1,000 teachers in 3 countries.
Plans for 2004:
Around the world, the Foundation hopes that people, particularly
students, in each of the 56 countries where it collected testimony,
will be able to see the face and hear the voice of a survivor
or other witness, thereby learning that a more tolerant society
is theirs to build. The Foundation will continue to offer outstanding
educational products and documentaries, and will work to make
visual history a reality, internationally, in classrooms, libraries,
and museums. Plans for 2004 include:
-- Shoah Foundation Honored by Italian Senate -
On the Day of Memory, January 27, 2004, the Italian
Senate honors the
Shoah Foundation. President and CEO Douglas Greenberg
will attend a
ceremony commemorating the occasion together with President
of the
Senate, Marcello Pera, and President Ciampi. The Day
of Memory is the
official memorial day in Italy for recalling the tragedy
of the Shoah.
Commemorative ceremonies are held in public institutions,
municipalities, schools, and universities all over the
country.
Screenings of Shoah Foundation documentaries will be previewed
both in
the morning and in the afternoon for students, teachers,
and the
general public.
-- Giving Voice - a reality-based program for high schoolers -
Giving Voice, a reality-based program for high schoolers
geared
towards helping schools teach about the consequences of
racism and
violence will be distributed to schools throughout the
US in March
2004. The product weaves together the first-person interviews
of
Holocaust survivors and other witnesses with the testimonies
of seven,
diverse teenagers, as they document their lives and record
their
observations about intolerance and bigotry and their responses
to
viewing survivor testimony. Giving Voice consists of
three
components: a 30-minute reality-TV style short documentary,
a reel of
testimonies from the Shoah Foundation archive, and a teacher's
guide
with classroom activities that will tie the two videos
together.
Through the generous support of Universal Studios Home
Video, this
program will be available in March through Films for the
Humanities &
Sciences at: www.films.com, or by contacting the Shoah
Foundation at
www.vhf.org/givingvoice.
-- New Website Launch -
In March 2004, the Foundation will launch a new website.
The site
features an innovative video delivery system that provides
a
video-enhanced online experience. It uses video vignettes
to
demonstrate important aspects of the Foundation's work
and includes
excerpts from survivor and witness testimonies. Online
exhibits,
resources for teachers and students, and an archive search
tool will
all utilize and highlight the visual history testimonies
contained in
the archive. The site also includes an efficient, user-based
navigational structure to support online donations and
provide
information about the organization.
-- Voices of the Holocaust: Children Speak - New Web Based
Exhibit
Unveiled -
Voices of the Holocaust: Children Speak - an interactive
English-language web exhibit designed for American middle
school
students, aged 11-14, will be launched on the Foundation's
new
website. Narrated by Peter Coyote, Elijah Wood, and Natalie
Portman,
Children Speak highlights testimonies from four survivors
who were
children during the Holocaust, and allows students to
interact with
the testimonies, while simultaneously exploring historical
overviews,
archival film footage, a glossary, maps, and survivors'
personal
photos. By using the web exhibit, students can participate
in a
dynamic environment where they can explore themes of identity,
responsibility, and friendship guided by stories of survival
and life
before, during, and after the Holocaust. A teacher's
guide with
lesson plans for educators will also be available.
-- Indexing of English Language Testimonies Completed -
In order to permit users to navigate through the more
than
117,000 hours of testimony, a team of historians, technology
professionals, software engineers, and experts in information
management developed the Shoah Foundation's cataloguing
and indexing
systems. The Foundation has reached a milestone with
the completion
of the English-language portion of indexing, nearly 25,000
testimonies. Now, the Foundation's bilingual staff has
turned its
efforts toward completing the indexing in the other 31
languages.
Plans call for the entire archive to be indexed by the
end of 2005.
-- Schindler's List Released on DVD -
Schindler's List releases on DVD for the first time
on March 9, 2004.
The month of March release date coincides with the 10th
anniversary of
the film's winning its seven Academy Awards at the ceremonies
in 1994
and is also the 10th anniversary of the Shoah Foundation.
The
Schindler's List DVD features additional materials that
further
illuminate the film's powerful subject matter. A moving
77-minute
documentary entitled Voices From the List offers never-before-seen
testimonies from the Shoah Foundation archive of Schindler
survivors,
as they recount their real-life experiences with the man
who saved
their lives. The DVD also features The Shoah Foundation
Story with
Steven Spielberg, a behind-the-scenes look at the work
and
accomplishments of the Shoah Foundation.
-- Broken Silence International Film Series Debuts on DVD -
Universal Home Video will release the Shoah Foundation's
Broken
Silence series of five foreign-language documentary films
in
approximately 19 countries. The films were directed by
distinguished
international directors in Argentina, the Czech Republic,
Hungary,
Poland, and Russia. The films were produced by James
Moll (director
of The Last Days). Each director worked with the Shoah
Foundation,
researchers, and historians to build a documentary about
the Holocaust
that would resonate most effectively in his own country,
language, and
culture. Each film primarily includes testimonies from
the Shoah
Foundation's archive and incorporates archival and modern
footage,
still photographs, original music, and narration. They
have been
broadcast in 18 countries worldwide.
-- Judisches Museum Berlin Visual History Collection Opens -
With funding from the Allianz Group and Judisches Museum
Berlin, a
collection of more than 1,000 testimonies which were either
given in
the German language or in Germany will be made available
to the public
in the spring at the Museum. A bilingual (English and
German)
searchable computerized tool containing biographical information
about
the interviewees will accompany the DVD collection.
-- The Visual History Archive Accessible via Internet2 -
The Shoah Foundation received funding from the Andrew
W. Mellon
Foundation, National Science Foundation, and the Library
Services and
Technology Act to provide digitized Holocaust testimonies
to
universities connected to Internet2, allowing the Foundation's
archive
to be used by professors, researchers, students and the
public.
Internet2, an international consortium of almost 200 domestic,
and
150 international research institutions and universities,
is a secure
fiber optic network that enables scholars, educators,
and students to
explore the vast research potential of the Shoah Foundation's
archive
from the convenience of their own campuses. An initial
collaboration
with three universities -- University of Southern California,
Rice
University, and Yale University allows exploration of
how personal
narrative in the format of visual history testimony works
as a vehicle
to facilitate learning at the university level.
Individuals interested in supporting the Shoah Foundation are
encouraged
to call 818/777-4673 or write to PO Box 3168, Los Angeles, California,
90078-3168.
CONTACT: Janet Keller of Shoah Foundation, +1-818-777-4999, janetk@vhf.org
Web site: http://www.vhf.org/givingvoice
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