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| Name: | Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies |
| Translated Name: | |
| Affiliation: | Yale University |
| ADDRESS: | P.O. Box 208240
New Haven, CT 06520-8240 |
| COUNTRY: | United States |
| TELEPHONE NUMBER: | +(1-203) 432-1879 |
| FAX: | +(1-203) 432-7441 |
| EMAIL: | fortunoff.archive@yale.edu |
| WEBSITE: | http://www.library.yale.edu/testimonies |
| OPERATING HOURS: | Monday - Friday 8:30 a.m. - 4:45 p.m. |
| CONTACT PERSON(S): | Joanne Rudof, Archivist
Phone: +(1-203) 432-1880
Email: joanne.rudof@yale.edu
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| GENERAL INFORMATION ABOUT THE ORGANIZATION: | In 1979, a project was undertaken by a television specialist, Laurel Vlock, and a survivor of the Holocaust, psychiatrist Dr. Dori Laub, based on the premise that the medium of video could be used successfully to document the personal memories of Holocaust witnesses. The effort was born of the conviction that time was running out and that every survivor had a unique story to tell. It was felt that the "living portraiture" of television would add a compassionate and sensitive dimension to the historical record.
This undertaking led to the formation of a grass roots organization, the Holocaust Survivors Film Project, Inc. It brought together survivors, under the leadership of William Rosenberg; academic consultants led by Yale Professor Geoffrey Hartman; and other community members committed to this urgent task. Their efforts resulted in an initial collection of 183 videotaped testimonies as well as several documentaries.
In 1981, all the original tapes were formally deposited at Yale University. The following year, with the aid of a start-up grant from the Charles H. Revson Foundation, the Video Archive was established as part of the University's Sterling Memorial Library. In 1987, Alan M. Fortunoff made a major gift to the endowment fund of the Video Archive, which guaranteed the permanence of the Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies.
The testimonies have been recorded in cooperation with thirty-seven affiliated projects in North and South America, Europe, and Israel. Each affiliate project maintains a duplicate collection of those locally recorded. The archive provides personal accounts of individuals with first-hand experience of the Nazi persecutions including survivors, those in hiding, bystanders, resistants, and liberators. The accounts are recorded in whatever language the witness preferred, and range in length from one-half hour to forty hours, the longer one over multiple sessions. The Yale Archive remains open for any witness who wishes to tell his or her story. |
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| OVERVIEW OF ORAL HISTORY COLLECTION: | More than 4,300 testimonies comprising over 12,000 hours of videotape are available at Yale University. The methodology stresses the leadership role of the witnesses in structuring and telling their story. Questions are primarily used to ascertain time and place, or elicit additional information about topics already mentioned, in an open-ended discussion that leaves the initiative with the witness.
The Archive is committed to providing intellectual access to its materials for researchers, teachers, students, and other viewers. The testimonies are cataloged into Orbis, Yale's online public access catalog. The bibliographic records are also available in two international databases: MIC (Moving Image Collection) and OCLC (Online Computer Library Center) WorldCat.
Eye-witness testimonies are crucial documents for education in an increasingly media-centered era. To encourage their use, the Archive has produced a library of video programs available for loan to schools and community groups.
Witness: Voices from the Holocaust, a documentary of excerpts from nineteen testimonies, was nationally broadcast by PBS on May 1, 2000. United Learning makes Witness available in video format or as streaming video with an accompanying teachers’ guide. The Free Press has published a book with the same title that includes additional excerpts from the nineteen witnesses and those of eight others.
The Archive has cooperative projects with the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe in Berlin, Germany and with the Bergen-Belsen Memorial and Museum, both of which plan to include testimony excerpts from the Fortunoff collection in their exhibits. The Museum of Jewish Heritage: A Living Memorial to the Holocaust, the Simon Wiesenthal Center, and the BBC are among the many institutions with which we have licensing agreements to include testimony excerpts in exhibits or productions.
The oldest tapes in the Archive were recorded in 1979, and like all magnetic media are threatened by format obsolescence and a limited media lifespan.The Archive has restored and reformatted 5,602 of the oldest cassettes. Some 1,500 testimonies have been digitized to MPEG2, an access format. Plans are underway to digitize the entire collection in both preservation and access formats.
The Fortunoff Video Archive website includes a descriptive catalog of all the edited programs that can be borrowed, brief video excerpts from nine testimonies, all past conference programs and newsletters as well as detailed information about the Archive's activities. |
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| Collect Holocaust Oral Histories: | Yes. |
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| Interview Guidelines: | Yes. |
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| Additional Information: | Information Not Available. |
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| Project Complete: | No. |
| Year of First Interview: | May 2, 1979 |
| Year of Last Interview: | Continuing to record testimonies. |
| Interviews Per Year: | Since 1995, there are fewer interviews conducted; in the 1980's, there were many more. |
| Average Hours Per Interview: | 2 |
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| RECORDING METHOD | |
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| Audio: | No. |
| Number of Audio Hours: | N/A |
| Total Number of Audio Interviews: | N/A |
| Number of Audio Reel-To-Reel Interviews: | N/A |
| Number of Audiocassette Interviews: | N/A |
| Number of Interviews in Other Audio Formats: | N/A |
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| Video: | Professional quality videotape. |
| Number of Video Hours: | Over 12000 |
| Total Number of Video Interviews: | Over 4300 |
| Number of 1/2-inch Betacam-SP Interviews: | Information Not Available. |
| Number of 3/4-inch U-matic Interviews: | Information Not Available. |
| Number of 1/2-inch VHS interviews: | All testimonies available in library on VHS user copies |
| Number of Film interviews: | None. |
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| RULES: | |
| Access to Collection: | Open. |
| Special Requirements for Access or Use: | Material can only be loaned via special arrangement and under contract. Loan fee equals that of tape duplication.
All visitors are required to complete a Registration/User Form describing the purpose of their research.
The staff will provide reference assistance to students and researchers.
The Video Archive indexes its testimonies by subject and geographic location, including brief summaries with particular emphasis on the fateful moments of the survivors' experiences. The indexing will aid researchers and direct them to testimonies pertinent to their area of interest. |
| Notice Required to Pull Tapes or Reserve Facility: | Appointments should be made to facilitate retrieval of materials and reservation of playback equipment. |
| Access Fee: | None. |
| Research Services: | No. |
| Research Fee: | No. |
| Research Services Requirements: | N/A. |
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| Permission Required for Use of Material in | |
| Publications: | Yes. |
| Classrooms: | Yes. |
| Public Lectures: | Yes. |
| Documentaries: | Yes. |
| How To Obtain permission: | Permission to publish may be obtained from Yale University Library upon written application. |
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| RESOURCES | |
| Format of Collection | |
| Video/Audio: | Yes. |
| Transcripts: | No. |
| Other: | Time-coded finding aids |
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| On-Site Equipment | |
| Audio: | N/A |
| Video: | Yes. |
| Users Can Bring Their Own: | No. |
| Other: | Information Not Available. |
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| Finding Aids | |
| Guide to Collection Available: | Yes. |
| Published: | Yes. |
| Guide Cost: | $25.00 |
| Address to Obtain Guide: | Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies
P.O. Box 208240
New Haven CT 06520-8240 |
| Additional Information: | Information Not Available. |
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| Transcripts | |
| Audio: | N/A |
| Video: | No. |
| Available for photocopying: | No. |
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| Summaries | |
| Summarized: | Abstracts available. |
| Available for Photocopying: | Online bibliographic records. |
| Available on Disk: | No. |
| Other: | Information Not Available. |
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| Indices | |
| Tapes Indexed: | Catalogue is a more accurate description. |
| Transcripts Indexed: | N/A |
| Summaries Indexed: | Online bibliographic records searchable |
| Indices Available for Photocopying: | N/A |
| Indices Available on Disk: | N/A |
| Other: | Information Not Available. |
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| Cataloging Information | |
| Collection Cataloged: | Yes. |
| Available on Computer: | Yes. |
| Other: | ORBIS (Yale University Library online public access catalogue). |
| MARC Format: | Yes. |
| MARC Format Type: | MARC-21 |
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| Internet Resources | |
| Web Address: | http://www.library.yale.edu/testimonies/homepage.html |
| Transcripts: | No. |
| Summaries: | Bibliographic records in Orbis, MIC (Moving Image Collection) and OCLC (Online Computer Library Center) WorldCat. |
| Catalog: | Online. |
| Indices: | Information Not Available. |
| Interview Clips: | On website (www.library.yale.edu/testimonies) |
| Other: | Time-coded finding aids available at Yale. |
| Additional Information: | Information Not Available. |
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| Bibliographic Information | |
| Belong to: | Yes. |
| OCLC: | No. |
| RLIN: | Yes. |
| Other: | No. |
| Plan to Join: | N/A. |
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| Loan or Purchase | |
| Material Available Through Interlibrary Loan: | Complete testimonies can only be loaned via special arrangement and under contract. |
| Loan by other collection: | Yes. |
| Loan Fee: | Cost of duplication. |
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| DETAIL ABOUT COLLECTION CONTENT | |
| Demographic Information about Interviewees: | |
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| Total Number: | over 4300 |
| Total Female: | Information Not Available. |
| Total Male: | Information Not Available. |
| No Data: | Information Not Available. |
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Female |
Male |
Total |
Other Information |
| Jews: | | | | Yes. |
| Roma and/or Sinti: | | | | Yes. |
| Political Prisoners: | | | | Yes. |
| Prisoners of War: | | | | Yes. |
| Jehovah’s Witnesses: | | | | Yes. |
| Homosexual Men/Lesbian Women: | | | | Information Not Available. |
| Resisters: | | | | Yes. |
| Partisans: | | | | Yes. |
| Rescuers: | | | | Yes. |
| Refugees: | | | | Yes. |
| Liberators: | | | | Yes. |
| Prosecutors: | | | | Yes. |
| Perpetrators/ Collaborators: | | | | No. |
| Refugee Relief Workers: | | | | Yes. |
| Other: | | | | Yes. |
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| Additional Information: | Information Not Available. |
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| Focus of Collection: | |
| Ghetto(s) | | |
| Camp(s) | | |
| Geographic Area(s) | | |
| Experience(s) | | |
| Survivor Group(s) | | |
| Other | | |
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| Additional Information: | Information Not Available. |
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Museum