USC Shoah Foundation debuts redesigned Visual History Archive
The launch marked the release of several updates that deepen the search capabilities of the Visual History Archive (VHA) and its 55,000+ testimonies. The Visual History Archive is the world’s largest collection of primary source video testimonies from survivors of the Holocaust and other genocides.
The Visual History Archive redesign was a five-year process that brought a wide range of improvements: a modern interface; greater sharing capability with other researchers; integration into other USC Shoah Foundation resources; faster, broader and more seamless access to content; transcripts, cataloging and upgraded mobile capabilities. Together, these new features enable users to find, view, store, and engage with survivor and witness testimony with unprecedented ease.
Dr. Mary Helen Immordino-Yang—Fahmy and Donna Attallah Chair in Humanistic Psychology / Director, USC Center for Affective Neuroscience, Development, Learning and Education / Professor of Education, Psychology & Neuroscience, Brain & Creativity Institute, USC Rossier School of Education—spoke of the transformative power of survivor testimony.
“When young people engage with deeply powerful stories, it teaches them how to build that kind of inspired, hopeful experience. What you’re really doing is teaching them about history, but you are enabling them to be able to imagine a future which has a different kind of humanity, which has a different kind of humanistic awareness of each other’s experiences, of each other’s possibilities, of each other’s pain, of each other’s reward and pleasure. And as we do that, we construct hope,” Dr. Immordino-Yang said.
