Visual History Archive (VHA)

The USC Shoah Foundation's Visual History Archive contains over 54,000 video testimonies in over 40 languages and from more than 60 countries. The Institute interviewed Jewish survivors (49,400 out of the total) and other persons with experience of the Holocaust. Each interview consists of a witness speaking about his or her life before, during, and after World War II. The interviews average two and a half hours in length, and each includes a display of materials, such as photos, which are supplied and interpreted by the interviewee.

VHA also includes video testimonies on the Armenian Genocide, the Nanjing Massacre, the Cambodian Genocide, the Guatemalan Genocide of 1978-1983, the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda, the ongoing conflicts in the Central African Republic and South Sudan, and anti-Rohingya mass violence. It also includes testimonies about contemporary antisemitism and acts of violence against Jews.

It is not necessary to create an individual account to access the database, but users can create a free account in order to save testimonies into their own sub-collections, which are called projects. The freely available Visual History Archive Online provides the same search capabilities, but the full video is displayed for only 1600 testimonies. Interviewees and their family members may request free digital copies of their testimony.