Visual History Archive at Columbia University

USC Shoah Foundation

The Visual History Archive contains nearly 52,000 video testimonies of survivors and other witnesses of the Holocaust taped in 56 countries and in 32 languages.   In April 2013, the Visual History Archive expanded to include a collection of 65 audiovisual testimonies of survivors and witnesses of the 1994 Rwandan Tutsi genocide.

The Visual History Archive has been used for the study of history, theatre, human rights, linguistics, and many, many more topics.  For a sampling of courses that use the VHA, please see this brochure.

  • Columbia students, faculty, and staff have on-campus and limited remote access to the Visual History Archive.
  • Non-affiliated researchers may obtain on-campus access by appointment. Contact vha@library.columbia.edu to make an appointment
  • A one-time registration is required. If this is your first time using the Archive, read Using the Archive at Columbia.
  • PC users
    The Archive is accessible using only Internet Explorer (8 or later).

To access the database (from a Columbia-networked computer only), please click on the "USC Shoah Foundation" banner below.

Visit the Shoah Visual History Archive at Columbia