Survivors of the Holocaust.

• Author: Rothenberg, Robert S.

While director Steven Spielberg was filming his Academy Award-winning "Schindler's List," he frequently was approached by Holocaust survivors looking to share their experiences with him. Deeply affected by their stories and the extensive research that went into making the movie, Spielberg conceived a project to record their testimony for future generations. "The majority of Holocaust survivors are in their 70s and 80s," he pointed out. "The window for capturing their testimonies is closing fast. It is essential that we see their faces, hear their voices, and understand that the horrendous events of the Holocaust happened to people and were committed by people."

Today, the Los Angeles-based Survivors of the Shoah (the Jewish term for the Holocaust) Visual History Foundation, created by Spielberg, is amassing more than 100,000 hours of survivor testimony around the world in 30 languages and putting them on tape. The interviews then are catalogued in computers, and online access is provided to researchers and students. Photos...