Sinclair Broadcast Group said it has made a multiyear agreement with the University of Southern California Shoah Foundation’s Institute for Visual History and Education, to provide facilities to record interviews with Holocaust and other genocide surivors as part of the institute’s Last Chance Testimony Collection initiative.
Sinclair’s WPEC West Palm Beach, Florida, is the first market to begin providing production space, equipment and staff to assist the institute in recording new testimony. Next month, WJLA Washington and WBFF Baltimore will open facilities.
Other Sinclair stations with news operations will be added in the future.
“It is an honor to assist USC Shoah Foundation with the recording of survivor’s interviews, ensuring the memorialization and preservation of these important, powerful stories. Through the education provided by the foundation, we hope to move one step closer to eradicating intolerance and discrimination in all forms,“ Sinclair CEO Chris Ripley said.
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The Last Chance Testimony Collection Initiative was launched in 2019 to encourage Holocaust survivors — most of whom are now in their eighties and nineties — to give testimony while time and memory permit.
USC Shoah Foundation is working with local Jewish federations to identify Holocaust survivors.
There is no cost to survivors or their families for recording these interviews.
“Every Holocaust survivor who shares his or her experience adds to our knowledge and provides an enduring legacy of memory,” said Dr. Robert J. Williams, Finci-Viterbi executive director of the USC Shoah Foundation. “With antisemitism once again on the rise around the world, it is our duty to collect and listen to the testimonies of those who experienced the worst consequences of unchecked bigotry against Jews.” ■
