Genocide and Holocaust Studies

Visual History Archives (VHA) USC Shoah Foundation

Your library card provides free access to the Visual History Archive (VHA) USC Shoah Foundation. This resource contains over 56,000 video testimonies and over 700,000 images of artifacts and photos of survivors and witnesses of genocide.

The Visual History Archive includes information testimonies related to the:

Holocaust
Armenian Genocide
Genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda of 1994
Nanjing Massacre in China
Guatemalan Genocide of 1978-1996
Cambodian Genocide of 1975-1979
War and Genocide in Bosnia and Herzegovina
Ongoing conflicts in the Central African Republic and South Sudan
Ongoing Anti-Rohingya mass violence

Select the link below to login to the Visual History Archive database:

Visual History Archive (VHA) USC Shoah Foundation
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The Visual History Archive (VHA) includes both the monumental Holocaust collection that had its genesis from Steven Spielberg's "Schindler's List" and resources from other crimes against humanity. The vast collection includes the complete testimonies from witnesses and survivors of the Holocaust and other notable genocides including the Armenian Genocide (1915-1923), Nanjing Massacre (1937), Rwanda (1994), and Guatemalan Genocide (1978-1996). The resource includes firsthand primary source accountings with 53,000 recorded testimonies, 112,000 hours of video, participants from 63 countries and 39 languages, 1.8 million names, and 700,000 images. The VHA represents the largest collection of primary source documents preserved and devoted to this subject area.

Additional Resources for Primary Sources

Digitized primary sources are often freely available online through libraries, museums, and government agencies. Search the internet using specific keywords for archives or primary sources.

For example:

1994 Rwanda genocide and archive
Holocaust personal narrative primary source

Below is a selected list of websites to help you get started.

Survivors and Victims Database
Search through millions of names or people persecuted by the Nazi regime
Yad Vashem The World Holocaust Remembrance Center
Yad Vashem, the World Holocaust Remembrance Center, is the ultimate source for Holocaust education, documentation and research
Holocaust Timeline | Holocaust Encyclopedia
Explore a timeline of events that occurred before, during, and after the Holocaust
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum | Collections Search
The Museum’s Collections document the fate of Holocaust victims, survivors, rescuers, liberators, and others through artifacts, documents, photos, films, books, personal stories, and more.
The Jeff and Toby Herr Oral History Archive | United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
One of the largest and most diverse collections of Holocaust testimonies in the world
Objects and History Search | Imperial War Museum
Maps, photographs, private papers, and more related to war in the 20th Century to the present
Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum
Photographs and other artifacts from the Auschwitz-Birkenau Concentration Camp site
Oral History | Norbert Wollheim Memorial
Video interviews with survivors of the Buna/Monowitz concentration camp

Genocide and Holocaust Studies

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Visual History Archives (VHA) USC Shoah Foundation

Additional Resources for Primary Sources