This illustrated, large-format book, Testimony: The Legacy of Schindler’s List and the USC Shoah Foundation—A 20th Anniversary Commemoration combines, for the first time, the behind-the-scenes story of the making of Schindler’s List with the history of the remarkable organization inspired by that landmark film. Steven Spielberg’s encounters with Holocaust survivors who visited the set and personally told him their stories set him on a quest to collect and preserve survivor testimony for generations to come. In 1994, he established the Shoah Foundation, and in the following four years nearly 52,000 eyewitness interviews were video recorded in 56 countries and 32 languages. This commemorative book relates how the foundation accomplished this feat through a worldwide network of dedicated people, pioneering interview methods, and state-of-the art technologies.
A special 140-page section tells the riveting story of the film in photos, script excerpts, and the words of the cast and crew, including Liam Neeson, Ben Kingsley, and Spielberg. Drawing from the Universal Pictures archives and exclusive interviews, here are details on Spielberg’s struggle to bring Oskar Schindler’s story from novel to script to screen, the casting, cinematography, and especially what happened during the difficult shoot in Poland in 1993—on locations where actual events of the Holocaust occurred.
Partnered with the University of Southern California since 2006, the USC Shoah Foundation has broadened its mission and now collects and preserves testimonies from other genocides, including those in Armenia, Cambodia, and Rwanda, while expanding its educational outreach, especially to young people. Its Visual History Archive—digitized, fully searchable, and hyperlinked to the minute—has become the largest digital collection of its kind in the world. As Spielberg writes in his introduction, “I believe the work of the USC Shoah Foundation is the most important legacy of Schindler’s List.”
Steven Spielberg (Introduction)
The renowned director and producer of Schindler's List has also directed, among other acclaimed films, Lincoln, War Horse, Saving Private Ryan, E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, Jurassic Park, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Amistad, and Jaws. He established the Shoah Foundation in 1994, inspired by his experience while filming Schindler's List.
Stephen D. Smith (Preface)
The executive director of the USC Shoah Foundation, Smith is one of the world's foremost experts on genocide prevention and the inaugural holder of the UNESCO Chair on Genocide Education at USC. His books include Forgotten Places: The Holocaust and the Remnants of Destruction and The Holocaust and the Christian World.
The USC Shoah Foundation—The Institute for Visual History and Education
In its first decade, the Shoah Foundation accomplished its worldwide project of interviewing nearly 52,000 survivors and witnesses of the Holocaust, and making their tes-timonies widely available for scholarship and education. Now part of the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, the USC Shoah Foundation's Visual History Archive (VHA) currently encompasses 107,000 hours of video testimonies, and is an invaluable resource for education, research, and scholarship. Through innovative online tools, resources, and programs, the institute is teaching the world through testimony.
