What foundation did Spielberg establish in 1994 to document Holocaust survivor testimonies?

The foundation Steven Spielberg established in 1994 to document Holocaust survivor testimonies was the Shoah Foundation.

Spielberg was inspired to preserve survivors’ experiences while making Schindler’s List. Survivors he met during production expressed a desire to tell their stories on camera, leading him to create the Survivors of the Shoah Visual History Foundation. Its purpose was to record firsthand testimony before the aging survivor population became smaller.

The project grew into one of the largest collections of recorded Holocaust testimony. Interviewers documented survivors in many countries and languages, preserving accounts of persecution, deportation, resistance, survival, and liberation. The collection also includes testimonies from other witnesses and people involved in liberation efforts.

The organization became affiliated with the University of Southern California in 2006 and is now known as USC Shoah Foundation. A common mix-up is Yad Vashem, Israel’s Holocaust remembrance center, which also preserves testimony and historical records but is a separate institution. The term “Shoah” is a Hebrew word commonly used to refer to the Holocaust.