From: Stephen D. Smith, Executive Director
Shoah Foundation Institute for
Visual History and Education
To Whom It May Concern:
On behalf of the USC Shoah Foundation Institute for Visual History and Education, I am writing today to express support for the forthcoming conference hosted by the National Jewish Theater, which I believe will be unique in scope and of utmost importance in mission.
Established in 1994 by Stephen Spielberg to collect and preserve the testimonies of survivors and other witnesses of the Holocaust, the USC Shoah Foundation Institute maintains one of the largest video digital libraries in the world: nearly 52,000 video testimonies in 32 languages and from 56 countries.
Central to our mission and our work is the belief that listening to and watching the faces of people who lived through one of the darkest times of the 20th century can have an impact on attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors of young people now and of countless future generations. Of equal importance is the impact we believe the testimonies can have on scholarship and research in a wide variety of disciplines. The National Jewish Theater is similar and complementary in their mission to produce performances that tell stories of what happened during the Holocaust, thus providing a forum through which history comes to life in a way that text on a page cannot.
It is for this reason that we support the work of the National Jewish Theater. Specifically, we are pleased to be affiliated with the conference they will host in which experts in numerour fields come together to address the need for high quality Holocaust and genocide-related theatrical productions that reach a global audience, including the younger generations who are growing up 50+ years after the end of the Holocaust.
It is my hope that you will consider supporting the work of the National Jewish Theater.
Sincerely,
Stephen D. Smith
Executive Director
Shoah Foundation Institute for Visual History and Education
College of Letters, Arts & Sciences
University of Southern California