Case Study

Preserving survivor testimonies

US Holocaust Memorial Museum

The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM) is the USA’s official memorial to the Holocaust. Adjacent to the National Mall in Washington (DC) USHMM provides for the documentation, study, and interpretation of Holocaust history. It is dedicated to helping leaders and citizens of the world confront hatred, prevent genocide, promote human dignity, and strengthen democracy.

With an operating budget of just under US$78.7 million in 2008, the Museum has a staff of about 400 employees, 125 contractors, 650 volunteers, 91 Holocaust survivors, and 175,000 members. It has local offices in 5 mother states.

The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, DC, selected SAMMA* to migrate more than 4,600 hours of videotaped survivor testimonies from analog tape to digital files. The recordings are a collection of interviews produced by the museum to preserve first-hand accounts from the dwindling population of Holocaust survivors.

The migration project began in late 2007. When completed, the final product will be one high resolution and two low resolution digital files of each master tape, accompanied by technical metadata describing the condition of the media item and the migration process.

The interviews will reside on the museum’s computer network and are accessible to visitors who wish to view them. The international reach of the project is reflected in the nations of residence of the interview subjects: the United States, France, Czech Republic, Germany, Greece, Lithuania, Poland, the former Yugoslavia, Macedonia, Latvia, the Netherlands, Israel, Belarus and the Ukraine.

* DAMsmart is the exclusive agent for SAMMA archival solutions in Australia and New Zealand.