More than 900 Holocaust testimonies recorded over four decades by the Jewish Family and Children Services Holocaust Center of San Francisco are now part of the USC Shoah Foundation’s Visual History Archive, it was announced Monday.

In a two-year partnership, the USC Shoah Foundation digitized, archived and catalogued Holocaust testimonies taken by JFCS in the Greater Bay Area, and integrated them into its Visual History Archive, making them fully searchable and accessible worldwide by students, teachers, scholars and the general public.

The JFCS Holocaust Center collection is the pilot project in USC Shoah Foundation’s Preserving the Legacy initiative.

“Integrating the JFCS Holocaust Center collection into the VHA marks an important milestone for the Institute,” said USC Shoah Foundation Executive Director Stephen Smith. “This is an exciting time for us as we continue to look for new partners to add to and enhance our work. If we don’t act quickly to preserve these recorded memories, valuable eyewitness testimony could be lost for all time.”

Most of the testimonies in the JFCS Holocaust Center collection were conducted in the late 1980s and early ’90s on videotape, a medium known to deteriorate over time. Converting the tapes to an archival digital format ensures they will be preserved in perpetuity, and facilitates digital distribution methods.

“Every survivor’s story is precious and every testimony educates and inspires young people. Our partnership with USC Shoah Foundation makes these testimonies available to the world forever,” said Dr. Anita Friedman, executive director of Jewish Family and Children’s Services of San Francisco, the Peninsula, Marin and Sonoma Counties.

“Our educational mission is to work together with USC Shoah Foundation to raise morally courageous and socially responsible future generations,” she said.

Other organizations currently participating in Preserving the Legacy include a consortium of Canadian organizations, the Florida Holocaust Museum and the Holocaust Museum Houston.

—City News Service

Originally published HERE