The promise and discontent of a digital Fortunoff Archive

Windsor Building Auditorium

Stephen Naron, Director of the Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies, Yale University, USA

In 1979, a grassroots organisation, the Holocaust Survivors Film Project, began videotaping Holocaust survivors and witnesses in New Haven, Connecticut. In 1981, the original collection of 183 testimonies was deposited at Yale University, and the Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies opened its doors to the public in 1982. Since then, the collection has grown to encompass over 4,400 testimonies or more than 12,000 hours of testimonies recorded in over a dozen countries in just as many languages. Now that the collection has been digitized for preservation purposes, the archive has pivoted to efforts that increase access, support teaching and research with the collection, and “activate” the archive in cultural production. This presentation will cover the history of the archive and several of the challenges as well as benefits inherent to this transition from the analogue to digital, both technical and curatorial, and ethical. As we move beyond the traditional physical confines of our archive, and institutional borders blur through sharing digital collections, traditional control slips away, and tensions emerge between the archive’s ethos and traditions and the new uses of testimony in cultural production and digital humanities.

Admission is free, no booking is necessary.