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180 Terabytes of Visual History: Incorporating Survivors of the

Shoah Archives into the Curriculum

Charles HenryAndrea MartinDiane Butler

http://shoah.rice.edu

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Shoah Visual History Foundation

Established in 1994 by Steven Spielberg to collect the testimonies of survivors and other eyewitnesses to the Holocaust

Mission statement:To overcome prejudice, intolerance, and bigotry - and

the suffering they cause - through the educational use of the Foundation’s visual history testimonies.

http://www.vhf.org

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The Shoah Archive

– 52,000 testimonies from Jewish survivors, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Roma and Sinti, homosexuals, political prisoners, rescuers, and liberators of concentration camps

– 32 languages including English, Russian, Hebrew, French, German, Dutch, Hungarian, Italian

– 1-18 hours in length, average 2.5 hours– 117,000 hours of video

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Technology

• 180 terabyte archive located at the Shoah Foundation

• Robot to load the tapes• Requires Internet 2 connection• Requires 1 terabyte of local cache

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System Architecture

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Mellon Grant - Participating Schools

(Rice, USC, Yale)

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The Rice Research Team• Charles Henry - Vice Provost & University Librarian• Geneva Henry - Executive Director, Digital Library Initiative• Lisa Spiro - Director, Electronic Resources Center, ETRAC• Andrea Martin - Director, Enterprise Systems & Applications• Diane Butler - Manager, Enterprise Systems & Applications• Chris Pound - Faculty Support, Educational Technology• Janice Bordeaux - Research Scientist/Licensed Psychologist,

George R. Brown School of Engineering• Jeff Koffler - Faculty Support, Enterprise Systems & Applications• Paul Cruz - Graduate Student, Department of Psychology

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Research Agenda

• Technology Platform– Does the technology work?– What investment needs to be made in

hardware, software, and staff support?

• Integration of Resources– What does it take to integrate into

existing curriculum?

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Research Agenda

• Usability– How will faculty manage instructional

strategies with digital video?

• Instructional Toolkit– What tools need to be offered to faculty

and students in order to ensure integration and usability?

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Research Agenda

• Intellectual Property– What impact are privacy and security concerns

likely to have on the way in which these interviews are used in college classrooms?

• Impact on Support– What structures need to be in place to maximize

the impact of these materials on teaching and learning?

– These materials rely on technology to be effective in classrooms and offices, how will it be managed?

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Research Agenda• Impact on Pedagogy

– To what extent, does the use of digital video alter teaching strategies and class assignments?

– How does the deeply emotional and sensitive nature of this collection affect student learning?

– What kinds of intellectual problems can be addressed using the testimonies in the archive that could not be addressed with other kinds of materials?

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Assessment• Faculty interviews

– Pedagogic vision– Use of the archive

• Student Survey– Satisfaction with quality and challenge of Shoah coursework– Emotional engagement and impact on students– Intellectual engagement and impact on learning– Satisfaction with archive technology support and expertise

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Fall 03 Courses

• Anthropology 328 - Violence, Terror, and Social Trauma – student project

• German 125 – Between Resistance and Collaboration – 3 student projects

• Religious Studies 209 – Introduction to Judaism – mandatory group projects

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Spring 04 Courses

• Anth 321 - Classical Studies 311 – Text as Property – full class case study on intellectual property

• Anth 327 – Gender and Symbolism – student project (Anth perspectives on rape)

• Anth 419 – Law and Society – student project• Anth 412/612 – Rhetoric – class, conference papers at AAA• History 254 – Culture and Society Post-1945 Germany – student

project • German 329 – Literature of the Holocaust & Exile• Visual Arts 327 – Documentary Production – 2 student projects

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Anthropology 328 - Violence, Terror, and Social Trauma

Julie Taylor, Ph.D.

Addressing the central place of violence in our society and its relations with social and political terror in other cultures

16 students – advanced undergraduates in anthropology and humanities

Goal: Teach students to recognize cultural models that explain and justify violence.

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Anthropology 328

• Used by one student to study the effects of survivors’ religiosity– did they become more or less religious after the war?

• “The Shoah archive was a wonderful way to move beyond statistics and into the individual experiences of the people involved in the Holocaust.”

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German 125 - Between Resistance and Collaboration

Maria-Regina Kecht, Ph.D.

Focus on individuals’ behavior in Nazi Germany/Austria.

13 students – freshman seminar

Goals: Examine a wide spectrum of participant roles – victims, rescuers, collaborators, and perpetrators. Students will learn from the choices of others and strengthen their personal resolve to help others regardless of the common opinion.

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German 125

• Used by 3 student projects as a source for multimedia projects:– Month by month timeline for Progressive Intensification of Nazi Racial

Policy– Medical Experiments in Nazi Germany– Kindertransport, 1938-1939

• Reactions: Surprise among students regarding details of everyday life such as how the Shoah affected routine cultural production, disrupting lives of popular artists, actors, and musicians.

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Religious Studies 209 - Introduction to Judaism

Gregory Kaplan, Ph.D.

Survey course on all aspects of the Jewish religion

15 students – undergraduates

Goals: Support lectures on Jewish life in Europe and assign students to view video and group presentations on how the Shoah affected a survivor’s Jewish identity.

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Religious Studies 209• Survey results:

– Interest in the archive appears very strong

– Students exceptionally satisfied with intellectual quality and challenge of archive-based coursework

– Group presentations required 1.5 hours of individual browsing, 2 hours of work on the assignment per student.

– Work had a strong emotional impact on most students. After first clip, room was completely still and silent.

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Project Results So Far

• Support for faculty and students– Laptops for faculty – Campus computers configured to ensure the

video plays– Train staff in the use of the archive for

multimedia projects– Make sure the technology doesn’t get in the

way of using the archive

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Technology Challenges

• Work in Progress– Not all videos are digitized– Searching is based on their keywords– Windows vs Mac– Business vs 24x7 academia

• Scalability Issues– Tape robot – Local cache holds 300 testimonies

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Changing the Values of a Generation

Religious Studies 209 Students:• “I was touched by the deeply emotional nature of the testimonies”

• “The more I saw, the more I felt like I know the people, and I became emotionally attached. I laughed with them and cried with them.”

• “They made me sad, angry, happy, and amazed by people’s strength all at the same time”

• “More realness to the Holocaust. Not just seen as a historical event or movie. Brought to life”