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USC Shoah Foundation Visual History Archive: Estonia

Established in 1994 to preserve the audio-visual histories of survivors and other witnesses of the Holocaust, the USC Shoah Foundation maintains one of the largest video digital libraries in the world: the Visual History Archive (VHA).

Estonia

Virtually the entire Jewish population of prewar Estonia was destroyed during the Holocaust, so eye-witness accounts of survivors in Estonia are extremely rare.

The Visual History Archive contains over 200 interviewees talking about their experiences in this country. Almost all are survivors who were deported from outside Estonia to camps such as Vaivara, Ereda, Goldfilz, and Klooga, as well as various German prisoner of war camps. Only one interviewee was born in Estonia: a Jewish survivor who managed to flee in 1941.

The nine interviews conducted by the USC Shoah Foundation in Estonia are Russian-language testimonies with Jewish survivors who moved to Estonia after the war.

 

Selected Bibliography 

Weiss-Wendt, Anton. Murder without Hatred: Estonians and the Holocaust, Syracuse, N.Y.: Syracuse University Press, 2009.

Visual History Archive Curator

Profile Photo
Crispin Brooks
Contact:
crispinb@usc.edu
213-740-6001
Website