Journal of Film Preservation N° 56 - FIAF

Jerusalem
Steven Spielberg
Jewish Film Archive
Adolf Eichmann at his trial in Jerusalem in 1961
Holocauste : Importante collection de
films à la Hebrew University.
La SSJFA a été choisie comme dépositaire de
l’une des plus importantes collections de
films sur l’Holocauste, celle du Ghetto
Fighter’s House, Musée de l’Holocauste et de
la Résistance. Situé au nord du pays, le
Musée a été créé en 1949 par des survivants
de l’Holocauste. C’est l’un des principaux
centres de documentation sur la Shoah. Il
abrite, en particulier, une collection
d’environ 1.600 films et vidéos sur
l’Holocauste. Il s’agit de films de fiction
récents aussi bien que de fragments de
documentaires jamais montés. Par ailleurs,
l’année dernière, dans le cadre d’un
programme commun, l’Archive d’Etat
d’Israël et le SSJFA ont préservé les
enregistrements en vidéo du procès d’Adolf
Eichmann à partir des bandes originales de
deux pouces. Cette année, une vidéo
cassette d’une heure sera éditée afin de
diffuser les extraits les plus marquants sur
les déclarations émises pendant le procès.
Holocausto : importante colección de
películas pasa a la Hebrew University
Major Holocaust Film Collection Comes to Hebrew University
The Steven Spielberg Jewish Film Archive, at the Hebrew University of
Jerusalem, has become the depository for one of the world’s largest collections
of films about the Holocaust, that of the Ghetto Fighters’
House, Museum of the Holocaust and the Resistance (Beit Lohamei
Haghetaot).
The Ghetto Fighters’ House, located in northern Israel, was established
by Holocaust survivors in 1949. It is among Israel’s premier Shoah documentation
centers, containing over a dozen large archival groups. The
film archive includes over 1600 films and videos on all aspects of the
Holocaust. The richness of the collection and the rarity of some of the
items can be attributed to two main factors. Firstly, the task of gathering
moving image records of the Holocaust period was undertaken immediately
after the Ghetto Fighters’ House was founded, resulting in one of
the earliest of these efforts by any such institution. The second, no less
important, factor was the energy of the late Miriam Novitch, who collected
all types of material, including film, for several decades, on behalf
of the Ghetto Fighters’ House, tracking down and acquiring hundreds of
titles in the process.
According to the agreement between the two institutions, all the 35 mm
and 16 mm prints in the Ghetto Fighters’ House collection will henceforth
be housed in the Spielberg Archive’s new premises on Mount
Scopus. Also to be deposited are hundreds of cans of Jewish historical
material that the Museum duplicated from archives all over the world
for use in its famous trilogy of documentary films dealing with different
aspects of the Holocaust: “The 81st Blow”, “The Last Sea” and “The Face
of the Revolt”. A third party to the agreement, the United States
Holocaust Memorial Museum, will fund the transfer of this material to
video viewing copies to be archived at the Museum in Washington, D.C.,
as well as in Israel. This tri-partite arrangement was negotiated by
Spielberg Archive Director Marilyn Koolik with Yossi Shavit, Archive
Director of the Ghetto Fighters’ House, and Raye Farr, Director of Film
and Video at the US Holocaust Memorial Museum.
Work on this project, scheduled to be completed over a three-year
period, commenced shortly after the agreement was finalized in late
1997. The range of material in the collection is very wide, encompassing
everything from comparatively recent feature film productions to
unedited documentary fragments. This major deposit further consolidates
the Spielberg Archive’s position as a key resource for film documentation
of the Holocaust. Last year, in a co-operative venture that
marked the first time in Israeli history that government funds were spent
on moving image preservation, the Spielberg Archive and the Israel State
Archive digitally preserved the video record of the 1961 trial of Adolf
Eichmann from the original two-inch videotapes. The recording of the
trial itself was a technical landmark, as it was the first time that the
medium of video had been used for news purposes. This year, facilitated
by the preservation of the trial record, a one-hour videocassette will be
4 Journal of Film Preservation / 56 / 1998