Oral history interviews of the Israel Documentation Project

Overview

Collection Summary

Oral history interviews of the Israel Documentation project recorded by the Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies, the Massuah Institute for the Study of the Holocaust, and the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. The 383 interviews in the collection date from 1991 to 2000 with two new additions in 2011, and as an ongoing project, additional interviews will be added. The interviews are recorded in a variety of languages including Hebrew, Yiddish, Polish, Russian, and French. Interviews include survivors of the Holocaust who immigrated to Israel.

Provenance

The Israel Documentation Project started in October 1990 as a joint project between the Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies at Yale University and the Massuah Institute for the Study of the Holocaust at Kibbutz Tel-Itzhak in Israel. The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum entered into an agreement with the Fortunoff Archive and Massuah in February 1991. They designated Mr. Nathan Beyrak as the Project Director. Massuah withdrew from participation in the Israel Documentation Project in 1992; however, interviewing continued under the joint direction of the Fortunoff Archive and the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Oral History Branch continued to receive interviews from the project through 2000, with two additions in 2011. Starting in 2018 the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Oral History Branch began conducting interviews with survivors in Israel independently of the original joint partners and with funding from the Blum family.