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What happened to the Armenian people was Genocide and it needs to be
recognized, Director of Shoah Foundation Institute says
armradio.am
14.04.2012 15:13
The USC Institute of Armenian Studies' Leadership Council will honor
the USC Shoah Foundation Institute, established by legendary filmmaker
Steven Spielberg, for championing the Armenian Genocide Digitization
Project, at a gala banquet to be held on Sunday, April 15 at the
Beverly Hilton Hotel.
The Shoah Foundation Institute, established by Steven Spielberg in
1994, has been part of the USC Dana and David Dornsife College of
Letters, Arts and Sciences since 2006. Its Visual History Archive
contains nearly 52,000 video testimonies of survivors and other
witnesses of the Holocaust; it is one of the largest archives of its
kind in the world.
The goal of the USC Institute of Armenian Studies' Leadership Council
is to bring together digital copies of all of the collections of
interviews with Armenian Genocide survivors and eyewitnesses,
essentially creating what may become the largest archive of Genocide
eyewitness interviews. With the USC Shoah Foundation Institute's
support of the Armenian Genocide Digitization Project, the interviews
will be indexed, preserved and made available to scholars, students
and researchers via the institute's Visual History Archive. The J.
Michael Hagopian/Armenian Film Foundation archive of nearly 400 filmed
eyewitness testimonies will be the first collection in the Armenian
Genocide Digitization Project.
`The collection of 400 histories that J. Michael Hagopian filmed over
30 years is being compiled so it can be digitized. That will be done
this year. Once the digitization is done, we take each interview and
index it minute-by-minute. There are things that we have to do,
especially for this collection, and, indeed, for any other Armenian
collection we will work with. Because we have very different
geography, all the names of the places, the languages and terminology
need to be addressed. We are bringing in experts to help with that.,
to make sure that what we do has integrity - historical integrity - and
also the integrity of ensuring that we take great care over these
testimonies.
`What happened to the Armenian people was Genocide and it needs to be
recognized as such by the international community and by organizations
wherever they are, so that we can work together as
communities - Armenians, Jews, Christians - wherever we are on a very
vitally important work of education for the future. That's our mission
here, and we intend to do that in very close cooperation with the
Armenian community,' USC Shoah Foundation Institute's Executive
Director Dr. Stephen D. Smith said in an interview with Asbarez.
Asked to comment on why Israel has not yet recognized the Armenian
Genocide, Dr. Smith said: `I think that it took a long time for any
country to recognize the Armenian Genocide for political reasons. This
is not about politics. This is about humanity. I think we all need to
be able, within ourselves as human beings - political entities or as
individuals - to get over those things which hinder us from recognizing
the suffering of others and to be able to just be clear about that. It
doesn't matter where we are in the world.'
recognized, Director of Shoah Foundation Institute says
armradio.am
14.04.2012 15:13
The USC Institute of Armenian Studies' Leadership Council will honor
the USC Shoah Foundation Institute, established by legendary filmmaker
Steven Spielberg, for championing the Armenian Genocide Digitization
Project, at a gala banquet to be held on Sunday, April 15 at the
Beverly Hilton Hotel.
The Shoah Foundation Institute, established by Steven Spielberg in
1994, has been part of the USC Dana and David Dornsife College of
Letters, Arts and Sciences since 2006. Its Visual History Archive
contains nearly 52,000 video testimonies of survivors and other
witnesses of the Holocaust; it is one of the largest archives of its
kind in the world.
The goal of the USC Institute of Armenian Studies' Leadership Council
is to bring together digital copies of all of the collections of
interviews with Armenian Genocide survivors and eyewitnesses,
essentially creating what may become the largest archive of Genocide
eyewitness interviews. With the USC Shoah Foundation Institute's
support of the Armenian Genocide Digitization Project, the interviews
will be indexed, preserved and made available to scholars, students
and researchers via the institute's Visual History Archive. The J.
Michael Hagopian/Armenian Film Foundation archive of nearly 400 filmed
eyewitness testimonies will be the first collection in the Armenian
Genocide Digitization Project.
`The collection of 400 histories that J. Michael Hagopian filmed over
30 years is being compiled so it can be digitized. That will be done
this year. Once the digitization is done, we take each interview and
index it minute-by-minute. There are things that we have to do,
especially for this collection, and, indeed, for any other Armenian
collection we will work with. Because we have very different
geography, all the names of the places, the languages and terminology
need to be addressed. We are bringing in experts to help with that.,
to make sure that what we do has integrity - historical integrity - and
also the integrity of ensuring that we take great care over these
testimonies.
`What happened to the Armenian people was Genocide and it needs to be
recognized as such by the international community and by organizations
wherever they are, so that we can work together as
communities - Armenians, Jews, Christians - wherever we are on a very
vitally important work of education for the future. That's our mission
here, and we intend to do that in very close cooperation with the
Armenian community,' USC Shoah Foundation Institute's Executive
Director Dr. Stephen D. Smith said in an interview with Asbarez.
Asked to comment on why Israel has not yet recognized the Armenian
Genocide, Dr. Smith said: `I think that it took a long time for any
country to recognize the Armenian Genocide for political reasons. This
is not about politics. This is about humanity. I think we all need to
be able, within ourselves as human beings - political entities or as
individuals - to get over those things which hinder us from recognizing
the suffering of others and to be able to just be clear about that. It
doesn't matter where we are in the world.'