Sinclair Broadcast Group to Provide Production for USC Shoah Foundation to Record “Last Chance Testimonies” from Holocaust and Genocide Survivors Nationwide
March 27 2023 - 9:00AM
Business Wire
Sinclair Broadcast Group today announced a multi-year, national
agreement with USC Shoah Foundation—The Institute for Visual
History and Education to assist with the recording of interviews
with genocide survivors as part of the Institute’s Last Chance
Testimony Collection Initiative, a race-against-time effort to
collect testimonies from the last living survivors and witnesses to
the Holocaust and other genocides. Under the agreement, Sinclair
will provide its production facilities to film testimonies via
high-definition video and audio recordings taken with
state-of-the-art equipment at its broadcast television stations
around the US.
Through this arrangement, Sinclair’s WPEC CBS 12 in West Palm
Beach, Florida was the first market to begin providing production
space, equipment, and staff to assist the Institute in recording
new testimonies. Beginning in April, the recording of testimonies
will expand to WJLA in Washington DC and WBFF in Baltimore, with
additional Sinclair news markets throughout the country
planned.
USC Shoah Foundation is working with local Jewish federations to
identify Holocaust survivors.
USC Shoah Foundation first began collecting testimonies almost
30 years ago to give voice to Holocaust survivors and use their
testimonies to educate present and future generations.
Over the next five years the Institute recorded and indexed more
that 50,000 interviews in which Holocaust survivors chronicled
their lives before, during and after the Holocaust. More than
52,000 Holocaust survivor and witness testimonies are now saved and
shared through the Institute’s Visual History Archive, which is
currently available to users at 185 access points in 15 countries
and forms the basis of educational activities that reach some 10
million learners annually.
The Last Chance Testimony Collection Initiative was launched in
2019 to encourage Holocaust survivors—most of whom are now in their
eighties and nineties—to give testimony while time and memory
permit.
Beginning in 2009, the Visual History Archive began adding
testimonies from other mass atrocities including the Armenian
Genocide, the 1994 Genocide Against the Tutsi in Rwanda, and the
War and Genocide in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The total archive now
contains more than 56,000 testimonies.
There is no cost to survivors or their families for recording
these interviews.
“It is an honor to assist USC Shoah Foundation with the
recording of survivor’s interviews, ensuring the memorialization
and preservation of these important, powerful stories. Through the
education provided by the foundation, we hope to move one step
closer to eradicating intolerance and discrimination in all forms."
said Chris Ripley, President and CEO, Sinclair.
Dr. Robert J. Williams, Finci-Viterbi Executive Director of USC
Shoah Foundation, said the Last Chance Testimony Collection
Initiative is rooted in the belief that as long as there are still
witnesses ready to speak, their voices must be heard.
“Every Holocaust survivor who shares his or her experience adds
to our knowledge and provides an enduring legacy of memory,” Dr.
Williams said. “With antisemitism once again on the rise around the
world, it is our duty to collect and listen to the testimonies of
those who experienced the worst consequences of unchecked bigotry
against Jews.”
USC Shoah Foundation is also seeking descendants of survivors
and Holocaust scholars to volunteer as interviewers to guide
survivors through the testimony collection process.
To request to be interviewed, to volunteer as an interviewer, or
for more information, go to sfi.usc.edu/last-chance.
About Sinclair:
Sinclair Broadcast Group, Inc. (Nasdaq: SBGI) is a diversified
media company and a leading provider of local news and sports. The
Company owns, operates and/or provides services to 185 television
stations in 86 markets affiliated with all the major broadcast
networks; owns Tennis Channel and multicast networks Comet, CHARGE!
and TBD; and owns and provides services to 21 regional sports
network brands. Sinclair’s content is delivered via multiple
platforms, including over-the-air, multi-channel video program
distributors, and the nation’s largest streaming aggregator of
local news content, NewsON. The Company regularly uses its website
as a key source of Company information which can be accessed at
www.sbgi.net.
About USC Shoah Foundation:
USC Shoah Foundation – The Institute for Visual History and
Education develops empathy, understanding and respect through
testimony, using its Visual History Archive of more than 56,000
video testimonies, academic programs, and partnerships across USC
and 185 universities. USC Shoah Foundation’s award-winning,
interactive IWitness education program, research and materials are
accessed in museums and universities, cited by government leaders
and NGOs, and taught in classrooms around the world. Now in its
third decade, USC Shoah Foundation reaches millions of people on
six continents from its home at the University of Southern
California. To learn more, visit https://sfi.usc.edu
Category: General
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version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20230327005407/en/
Sinclair Broadcast Group: Jessica Bellucci jbellucci-c@sbgtv.com
USC Shoah Foundation: uscsfpress@usc.edu
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