The Sala and Aron Samueli Holocaust Memorial Library is pleased to announce that it has recently become an access site for the Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies at Yale University. The Archive, begun in 1979 as the Holocaust Survivors Film Project, was donated to Yale University in 1981. Additional interviews were added over the years to create the Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies comprised of some 4,300 testimonies. Now digitized, testimonies range in length from 30 minutes to over 40 hours.

Leopold Page

Leopold Page

Among the thousands, there are 27 testimonies from survivors that worked in Oskar Schindler’s factories, including Moshe Bejski, Leopold Page, and Sol Urbach. These testimonies are a valuable resource to accompany the Oskar Schindler Archive, as the collection contains many letters from these survivors. The ability to see the survivor’s testimonies provides a human face to history and allows viewers to learn from an individual perspective.

The testimonies are available through a streaming access system (Aviary), summarized notes and transcripts are included with the testimonies when available. Researchers are also able to navigate from one video to another. The resource is browsable through the Leatherby Libraries’A-Z databases list, or directly at the link https://chapman.libguides.com/fortunoff_archive

If you have any questions, please feel free to contact the Archivist of the Oskar SchindlerArchive, Tiana Taliep, at taliep@chapman.edu.