Shoah Foundation Director Discusses Digitization of Armenian Survivor
Testimonies
asbarez
Friday, April 13th, 2012
by Ara Khachatourian
USC Shoah Foundation Executive Director Dr. Stephen Smith
The USC Institute of Armenian Studies’ Leadership Council will honor
the USC Shoah Foundation Institute, established by legendary filmmaker
Steven Spielberg, for championing the Armenian Genocide Digitization
Project, at a gala banquet to be held on Sunday, April 15 at the
Beverly Hilton Hotel.
The Shoah Foundation Institute, established by Steven Spielberg in
1994, has been part of the USC Dana and David Dornsife College of
Letters, Arts and Sciences since 2006. Its Visual History Archive
contains nearly 52,000 video testimonies of survivors and other
witnesses of the Holocaust; it is one of the largest archives of its
kind in the world.
The goal of the USC Institute of Armenian Studies’ Leadership Council
is to bring together digital copies of all of the collections of
interviews with Armenian Genocide survivors and eyewitnesses,
essentially creating what may become the largest archive of Genocide
eyewitness interviews. With the USC Shoah Foundation Institute’s
support of the Armenian Genocide Digitization Project, the interviews
will be indexed, preserved and made available to scholars, students
and researchers via the institute’s Visual History Archive. The J.
Michael Hagopian/Armenian Film Foundation archive of nearly 400 filmed
eyewitness testimonies will be the first collection in the Armenian
Genocide Digitization Project.
After touring the facility, Asbarez Editor Ara Khachatourian caught up
with the USC Shoah Foundation Institute’s Executive Director Dr.
Stephen D. Smith, who discussed the foundation and detailed the
partnership with the Armenian Film Foundation. We present the
interview below:
ARA KHACHATOURIAN: Tell us about the Shoah Foundation and how it came
into being?
STEPHEN SMITH: The USC Shoah Foundation came into being after the
filming of Schindler’s list when film director Spielberg realized that
many Holocaust survivors who wanted to tell their own personal life
histories. And he set out the project, to enable as many survivors as
wanted to tell their own stories. And 52,000 survivors and witnesses
to the Holocaust were interviewed in 56 countries in 32 languages,
creating a vast audio-visual archive.
A.K.: What is this archive going to be used for?
S.S.: The archive has several purposes. First of all it is about the
documentation of personal life histories. So that what we have is not
just the large scale of what Genocide looks like, but also the
individual stories that make that up. It is very important to document
that. Secondly, it’s about giving voice to the individual so they can
talk about their families, communities and the things that really
matter to them, because when Genocide takes place the intention is to
wipe those out. By these individuals talking about what happened to
them, they reinstate them in memory and in our lives. The third, and
most important, perhaps, is education. To give opportunity for people
around the world to have access to these vitally important life
histories and to understand what it means to them and their lives
today and to learn about their experiences.
A.K.: What about the partnership with the Armenian Film Foundation.
What is that entail and where are you in that process?
S.S.: The archive of the Shoah Foundation was donated to USC in 2006,
creating the USC Shoah Foundation Institute. What we have here is an
infrastructure by which the testimonies of Holocaust survivors have
been documented. But we have the infrastructure is about to digitize,
to preserve, to index, to catalogue and to disseminate audiovisual
life histories. We put together a partnership using the USC Shoah
Foundation as the basis in which the architecture and infrastructure
of the Shoah Foundation is going to be utilized to be able to
digitize, to preserve, to index, catalogue and disseminate the
testimonies of the Armenian Film Foundation.
A.K.: Where are you in that process?
S.S.: So, the collection of 400 histories that J. Michael Hagopian
filmed over 30 years is being compiled so it can be digitized. That
will be done this year. Once the digitization is done, we take each
interview and index it minute-by-minute. There are things that we have
to do, especially for this collection, and, indeed, for any other
Armenian collection we will work with. Because we have very different
geography, all the names of the places, the languages and terminology
need to be addressed. We are bringing in experts to help with that.,
to make sure that what we do has integrity – historical integrity – and
also the integrity of ensuring that we take great care over these
testimonies.
A.K.: One of the concerns that I’ve heard in the community is by
giving this archive to the USC Shoah Foundation it might be lost as an
asset of the community. With this and with future archive, how can the
community be able to access it and use it and how we can ensure that
it is not lost?
S.S.: The beauty of a partnership like this is that the Armenian Film
Foundation retains the ownership of the collection. What we do is we
license a copy of it – the digital copy. Then we have an arrangement
with our partner that we have permission to use that digital copy and
make it accessible to a wider public. What we are interested in, as a
research and an educational institute, is making sure that these
testimonies are given the greatest opportunity to reach the widest
public.
One of the things that we’re all interested in – within the Armenian
community, within the academic community and, indeed in the Jewish
world – is how do we who experienced these experiences, such as the
Armenian Genocide, tell the world what happened and give them a chance
to learn.
The great thing here is that through this partnership the testimonies
themselves will remain as part of the Armenian community’s legacy and
will remain within the Armenian community, but the power of those
testimonies will reach the world.
A.K.: How did you get involved in the Shoah Foundation?
S.S.: I was born in a mining village in middle of Nottinghamshire,
England. My father was a Christian minister in the Methodist Church
and my mother is a religion education teacher. I had no connection to
the Jewish world at all until I went to a family holiday to Israel. We
found a fascinating experience and I got very interested in the
Christian-Jewish relationship initially. With the more I learned about
anti-Semitism within the Christian world the more I realized that
Holocaust did not come out of nowhere and there are real issues to
address here. One of the big moments in my learning experience was
being in Yad Vashem, the Holocaust Memorial in Jerusalem. So there I
was, a young guy in my early twenties, coming from Britain and a
Christian background in Israel learning about the Holocaust.
One of the things I learned in Yad Vashem was about a group of people
called `Righteous Among the Nations.’ These were people who rescued
Jews during the Holocaust -all of them rescued at least one Jewish
person except from one of them: his name was Armin T. Wegner. And, I
was very impressed by this individual, because, he had, in 1933, when
the Jews were first boycotted in Nazi Germany, written a letter to
Adolf Hitler saying `in my name, in the name of the German people
STOP, because what you are doing could result in the distraction of
the Jews and certainly would bring shame upon our country forever.’
What I was surprised to find out the same Armin Wegner that spoken out
on behalf of the Jews was the Armin Wegner that taken photographs
during the Armenian Genocide, documented it and then tried, in the
1920s, to be a part of the legal process to bring this to the
attention of the world. So he was a man that experienced the Armenian
Genocide, and was equipped to try to prevent the genocide happening in
the rest of the world. He failed in both counts. The Armenian Genocide
happened and the Holocaust happened. But he was the very same man that
sat with Michael Hagopian in 1967 and said `Michael you are filmmaker,
wouldn’t it be wonderful to use your art to collect the testimonies of
the Armenian Genocide survivors.’ So, this is a part of the legacy
that we all share. Armin Wegner has been a tremendous influence on my
life, because he was the guy that never stopped trying and gave us a
tremendous example of why we want to learn about these genocides.
Because, we want to prevent it in the future too.
A.K.: It’s ironic, because Israel has not recognized the Armenian
Genocide officially. In fact, a couple of months ago one of the
foreign ministry officials said there cannot be a comparison between
the Holocaust and Genocide, because Holocaust was a unique experience.
What are your thoughts on that?
S.S.: Human suffering cannot be compared. How can I say that what I
suffered is greater than what you suffered? It’s a travesty to do
that. However, the causes and the consequences absolutely must be
compared, if we as a human race are to be able to understand what we
are we capable of and to be able to prevent that? What we don’t need
is comparison. What we do need is compassion.
A.K.: The fact that Israel has not recognized…What do you attribute that to?
S.S.: I think this is a tragedy, that any countries took a long time
to recognize the Armenian Genocide for political reasons. This is not
about politics. This is about humanity. I think we all need to be
able, within ourselves as human beings – political entities or as
individuals – to get over those things which hinder us from recognizing
the suffering of others and to be able to just be clear about that. It
doesn’t matter where we are in the world.
A.K.: What of American anti-defamation groups, such as the ADL (The
Anti-Defamation League), which while not denying the Armenian
Genocide, is impeding efforts for international recognition of the
fact.
S.S.: What I can say, is that USC Shoah Foundation Institute is very
clear about this. What happened to the Armenian people was Genocide
and it needs to be recognized as such by the international community
and by organizations wherever they are, so that we can work together
as communities – Armenians, Jews, Christians – wherever we are on a very
vitally important work of education for the future. That’s our mission
here, and we intend to do that in very close cooperation with the
Armenian community.
A.K.: Another issue that has been talked about is the component of
funding for this project? I have been asked by several of our readers
and viewers that are the other groups that are being represented in
the Shoah Foundation collection being asked to raise funds for the
inclusion of their archives? Is there a component of fundraising that
goes on continuously in the Shoah Foundation?
S.S.: Basically, we have different collections – they are like different
projects. So for each of those projects we need to find the
appropriate people to support and fund them. And in fact whether we
talk to our Rwandan colleagues or Armenian colleagues we say let’s
think about what’s the best way to do this. If we have a story to
tell, let’s really take ownership for that. We take our responsibility
very seriouslsy also to think how can we best contribute in terms of
our time, and our effort and our energy to really make this work for
all of us and to share the burden of telling the story. That’s the
principle that we have here.
A.K.: When do you think the Armenian archive will be up and running?
S.S.: From the time, in which we manage to find the funding for the
archive, it’s about an 18 month-to-a year process. One of the things
that we take very seriously here at USC – we are a research
university – is making sure the quality of the work that goes into this
is done at the very highest level.
We’re already tackling enough as it is, in terms of denial and
obfuscation. So what we want to make sure is that we spend enough time
on the detail of the indexing and the clarity of that, so whether
people use it for research or for education, we know we’ve done our
work very thoroughly. If that means, that we take a little longer,
that’s time well spent in my view, because we want this to be right
for the benefit for those 400 people that gave testimonies and other
archives that we might indeed work with in the future on the same
subject matter.
A.K.: How do you safeguard those interviews from being taken and
bastardized by those who want to revise history?
S.S.: Whenever we put content into the public domain we always have
that risk that somebody will misuse it. We have to be very careful
about that and build policies around that. So, one of the policies is
that we release our content on a registration basis only. Maybe, we
want to put some testimonies and make them available to the wider
public and if somebody takes it and misuses it, we do run that risk.
The greater good being served here, and the number of people that get
a great deal out of it, so vastly overwhelms that small number that
are very marginal to our work. Putting work and testimonies in the
public domain has a very beneficial value.
A.K.: As generations are coming up, the distance between the reality
of the Holocaust or Genocide and the current existence is growing
wider. For the Armenian instance it’s almost 97 years. Survivors are
not there anymore. What is your message to the new generation that
might not have direct contact with the first-person account?
S.S.: Of course, you can’t replace a human being. There’s nothing more
wonderful than talking to another soul about their experience and
feeling that sense of connection. But, of course, there’s the reality
of time and we have to deal with it. Video does have a very profound
effect on the way in which this particular generation understands
history. We are experiencing with that now with the Holocaust
survivors testimonies. We weigh carefully how young people are using
them and they do develop a real strong sense of connection. With a
video testimony you see eyes, and the eyes are like the windows to the
soul… And you see the face, you really get a sense of who that person
is and it’s so interesting how often people – students – say `oh I met so
and so.’ And of course they never met them at all, but they saw them
on the screen but they get that sense of connection. So, I believe
that all is not lost and there is a lot to be gained from this.
One of things that bringing the Armenian film foundation collection in
is that in about 18 months from now we will have Holocaust survivors
testimonies, an Armenian survivors testimonies, Rwandan survivors
testimonies all will available to this generation. I can tell you,
from talking with teachers and students, they are really looking
forward to that, because they know that while they are not going to
compare them, they are going to understand human experience in a much
deeper way, to a point in which they can listen to many voices across
many generations.