52,000 Holocaust survivor testimonies transferred to Jerusalem

Sep 25, 2008, 9:55 GMT

Jerusalem - A full copy of nearly 52,000 testimonies of Holocaust survivors has been transferred to the Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial Centre in Jerusalem, making it the world's largest repository of survivor evidence of the Nazi genocide of the Jews.

The testimonies, from 56 different countries and in 32 languages, were transferred from the archive of the University of Southern California's Shoah Foundation Institute for Visual History and Education, Yad Vashem said.

The testimonies will supplement Yad Vashem's existing archive of 10,000 testimonies, filmed from 1989, as well as 5,000 Holocaust- related films of all genres produced from 1945.

'The testimony of the survivors who personally experience the horrors of the Shoah are the legacy that they impart to us,' Yad Vashem chairman Avner Shalev said.

He said easy access to personal testimonies, via Yad Vashem's Visual Centre, 'is essential in an era where the generation of Holocaust survivors is dwindling and the demand for knowledge in these areas is growing.'

The Shoah Foundation, established by movie director Steven Spielberg in 1994, and incorporated into the University of Southern California in 2006, videotaped the testimonies between 1994 and 2000.