Holocaust Survivors Film Project records
Scope and Contents
The Holocaust Survivors Film Project (HSFP) was a grass roots project to videotape testimony of survivors. The records document the establishment of the project and its growth from a volunteer effort to an established academic research collection, now known as the Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies, at the Yale University Library. The collection includes administrative and financial records, such as correspondence, press releases, meeting minutes, grant proposals, pamphlets, and clippings.
Of particular interest is the correspondence between members of the HSFP (particularly Dori Laub, Laurel Vlock, Geoffrey Hartman, Malcolm Webber, Melvin Ditman, and Ludwig Friedenberg) and survivors; grant funding agencies; various affiliate projects and Jewish organizations, such as Yad Vashem; television stations; scholars of the Holocaust, including Elie Wiesel, Yizhak Arad, and Yehuda Bauer; representatives from the President's Comission on the Holocaust; and potential repositories to house the HSFP tapes.
Dates
- 1978-1986
Creator
Conditions Governing Access
The materials are open for research.
Conditions Governing Use
Copyright for unpublished materials authored or otherwise produced by the Holocaust Survivors Film project has been transferred to Yale University. These materials may be used for non-commercial purposes without seeking permission from Yale University as the copyright holder. For other uses of these materials, please contact beinecke.library@yale.edu.
Copyright status for other collection materials is unknown. Transmission or reproduction of materials protected by U.S. Copyright Law (Title 17, U.S.C.) beyond that allowed by fair use requires the written permission of the copyright owners. Works not in the public domain cannot be commercially exploited without permission of the copyright owners. Responsibility for any use rests exclusively with the user.
Immediate Source of Acquisition
Transferred from the Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies, 2008.
Arrangement
The records follow two arrangements that reflect how they were received. Administrative and financial records are followed by records in an alphabetical filing system. This latter group of records includes generic files and subject files.
Extent
2 Linear Feet (2 boxes)
Language of Materials
English
Catalog Record
A record for this collection is available in Orbis, the Yale University Library catalog
Persistent URL
Abstract
The Holocaust Survivors Film Project (HSFP) was a grass roots project to videotape testimony of survivors. The records document the establishment of the project and its growth from a volunteer effort to an established academic research collection, now known as the Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies, at the Yale University Library. The collection includes administrative and financial records, such as correspondence, press releases, meeting minutes, grant proposals, pamphlets, and clippings.
Biographical / Historical
In 1979, a television specialist, Laurel Vlock, and a survivor of the Holocaust, psychiatrist Dr. Dori Laub, launched a project to document the personal memories of Holocaust witnesses using the medium of video. They helped form a grass roots organization, the Holocaust Survivors Film Project (HSFP), together with local survivors, under the leadership of William Rosenberg, academic consultants led by Yale Professor Geoffrey Hartman, and other community members committed to this urgent task. Initially, this group videotaped almost 200 testimonies; produced, with New York's WNEW-TV, Forever Yesterday, an Emmy award-winning documentary; and created About the Holocaust, a specially prepared documentary for secondary schools. In 1981 Yale University accepted all the original testimony tapes as a formal deposit. 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. Additional information about the HSFP and its successor organization, the Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies, can be found at the Video Archive's web site: http://www.library.yale.edu/testimonies.
- Title
- Guide to the Holocaust Survivors Film Project Records
- Status
- Under Revision
- Author
- compiled by Stephen Naron
- Date
- September 2009
- Description rules
- Describing Archives: A Content Standard
- Language of description note
- Finding aid written in English.
Part of the Manuscripts and Archives Repository
Yale University Library
P.O. Box 208240
New Haven CT 06520-8240 US
(203) 432-1735
(203) 432-7441 (Fax)
beinecke.library@yale.edu
Location
Sterling Memorial Library
Room 147
120 High Street
New Haven, CT 06511