Events & Programs

Inspired by his experience making Schindler’s List, Steven Spielberg established the Survivors of the Shoah Visual History Foundation in 1994 to gather video testimonies from survivors and other witnesses of the Holocaust. While most of those who gave testimony were Jewish survivors, the Foundation also interviewed homosexual survivors, Jehovah’s Witness survivors, liberators and liberation witnesses, political prisoners, rescuers and aid providers, Roma and Sinti (Gypsy) survivors, survivors of Eugenics policies, and war crimes trials participants.

Today the Foundation’s Visual History Archive holds nearly 52,000 video testimonies in 32 languages, representing 56 countries, and includes more recent efforts to collect the testimonies of survivors of the Rwanda genocide and the Killing Fields in Cambodia. It is the largest archive of its kind in the world.

Dr. Stephen Smith, the executive director of the USC Shoah Foundation Institute for Visual History and Education, will engage the audience in a discussion of some of the big issues that affect humanity today and how we might respond to them.

About Dr.Stephen Smith

Dr. Stephen Smith is an international speaker, lecturing widely on issues relating to the history and collective response to the Holocaust, genocide, and crimes against humanity. His publications include Making Memory: Creating Britain’s First Holocaust Centre; Forgotten Places: The Holocaust and the Remnants of Destruction and The Holocaust and the Christian World. He has taught extensively in Lithuania and has been a member of the International Task Force for Cooperation on Holocaust Education, Remembrance and Research since its inception in 1998.

He continues to be involved in memorial projects around the world, including founding the UK Holocaust Centre in Nottinghamshire, England and cofounding the Aegis Trust for the prevention of crimes against humanity and genocide. He was also the project director responsible for the creation of the Kigali Memorial Centre in Rwanda and provided consultation for the Cape Town Holocaust Centre, where he still serves as a trustee.