While director Steven Spielberg was researching and shooting what would become arguably his most important film, Schindler’s List, he met numerous Holocaust survivors and was deeply moved and affected by their statements and stories of suffering. Many survivors asked him to film their stories as well. Encouraged by the film’s international success, Spielberg decided to devote a portion of its profits to a unique cause, founding the Shoah Visual History Foundation.

This foundation – financially and logistically supported by countless sponsors – has set itself the goal of producing video interviews of Holocaust survivors around the world. The subsequent archive is then prepared according to scientific criteria and made available to future generations.

The film accompanies the German interviewer Adriana Altara and her camera crew. They give us a glimpse of their work and illuminate their motivations for taking part in this enormous project. We are led to the Shoah Foundation’s headquarters in Los Angeles, which is housed in a number of office containers – almost like a tiny, globally-linked village – at the edge of the enormous Universal Studios north of Hollywood. The unique project’s strings range across the world and come together in this one place.

Directors: Wibke Kämpfer, Michael Schehl
Writer: Gunter Hanfgarn
Cinematographer: Michael Schehl
Editor: Michael Schehl
Sound: Oliver Klein
Commissioning editors: Meinhard Schmidt-Degenhardt, Harald Quist, Susanne Sturm
Producer: Gunter Hanfgarn
Channels: ORB, HR, MDR