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“Pinchas, how old are you?” Steven Spielberg asked the wall screen, a life-size video image of an elderly man in a cardigan, who blinked and answered without missing a beat.
“I was born in 1932, so you can make your own arithmetic,” responded Pinchas, in a Polish accent.
“He asked me to do the math!” Spielberg laughed. “How did you survive when so many did not?”
“How did I survive?” the screen responded. “I survived, I believe, because provenance watched over me.”
The chat went on for five minutes, and while the artificial intelligence looked eerily reminiscent of Spielberg’s earlier films, the goal wasn’t entertainment — it was education. On the sound-sensitive screen was an interactive biography of Pinchas Gutter, a Polish Holocaust survivor and part of a tour the director was leading through the redesigned headquarters for the USC Shoah Foundation, the organisation he founded in 1994 to collect testimony from Holocaust survivors.
Now Spielberg has expanded the foundation’s footprint on the University of Southern California campus, along with its mission and public focus: to fight hate, which he says has become commonplace globally.
“The presence of hate has become taken for granted,” Spielberg said. “We are not doing enough to counter it.”
The prerecorded video conversation is part of a series using playback technology that invites visitors to converse with 16 survivors of genocide, based on specific word patterns and more than 2,000 questions that vary from views on God to personal history. Earlier last month, the testimony of Pinchas was displayed at the United Nations on the 70th anniversary of the adoption of genocide laws, a storytelling tool to raise awareness.
While the foundation continues to archive stories from victims of anti-Semitism, and advocate on their behalf, it is also collecting what Spielberg calls “living testimony” from modern genocide victims.
“The Holocaust cannot stand alone,” he said with conviction. “We decided to send our videographers into Rwanda to get testimony. From there we went to Cambodia, Armenia — we’re doing a critical study in the Central African Republic, Guatemala, the Nanjing massacre. Most recently, we’re doing testimony on the anti-Rohingya violence in Myanmar and the current anti-Semitic violence in Europe. We’re expanding our scope to counter many forms of hate.”
The 10,000-square-foot space — which opened to the public in November — is a far cry from the organisation’s beginnings following Schindler’s List, in 1993. Spielberg sent an army of videographers around the globe to record Holocaust survivors’ stories. Betamax tapes of the interviews were stored at his Amblin Entertainment offices on the Universal Studios lot, and then at a storage company before the foundation’s move to USC’s Leavey Library in 2006. (There are a little over 51,000 recordings of Holocaust survivors in the visual history archive, a staggering 115,000 hours.)
The presence of hate has become taken for granted. We are not doing enough to counter it.
Today the group has 82 employees and an annual budget of about $15 million, which includes $3 million from the university. It also has received millions in donations. Its new home — part office, part media lab — is packed with video testimonies from 65 countries in 43 languages, along with survivor-inspired artwork (a hanging steel sculpture by British artist Nicola Anthony incorporates phrases from filmed testimony.) Visitors can tour the offices Monday through Friday, between 10am and 2pm.
“Everyone thinks the Shoah Foundation is about archiving the past but it’s about understanding empathy and using testimony to shine a light,” said Stephen D. Smith, its executive director.
The relaunch coincides with the theatrical re-release of Schindler’s List. In her 1993 review of the film for the New York Times, Janet Maslin wrote: “Rising brilliantly to the challenge of this material and displaying an electrifying creative intelligence, Mr Spielberg has made sure that neither he nor the Holocaust will ever be thought of in the same way again.”
The film ran in about 1,000 theatres in mid-December and was screened free for students nationwide. Although it was digitally remastered in 4K resolution, Spielberg said, “I didn’t touch a frame.” The original version of the film is currently available on Netflix.
A quarter-century on, it remains a complex depiction of Nazi horrors.
“We were surprised that somebody even attempted to make a film about it,” said Renee Firestone, 94, whose story is told at the foundation.
Despite the expansion, some challenges remain, Smith said. Most testimonies are unavailable online, which means they can only be seen at the foundation or the 146 partner libraries and universities (links are free for families of those interviewed). There are no transcripts of the recordings yet, but the foundation is spending $10 million building a free online platform for researchers, schools and the general public starting in late 2019, Smith said.
Days before Spielberg’s 72nd birthday, wearing a suede jacket and 1860s-style boots from his 2012 opus, Lincoln, the director munched a granola bar at the foundation’s headquarters. The colour of his beard is now saltier, he has a few more inches around the middle, but his grey-green eyes still shine boyishly when he’s discussing his foundation and his seminal film. These are edited excerpts from that conversation.
Why expand the mission of the Shoah Foundation?
I think there’s a measurable uptick in anti-Semitism, and certainly an uptick in xenophobia. The racial divide is bigger than I would ever imagine it could be in this modern era. People are voicing hate more now because there’s so many more outlets that give voice to reasonable and unreasonable opinions and demands. People in the highest places are allowing others who would never express their hatred to publicly express it. And that’s been a big change. There’s all kinds of efforts to take the truth and subvert it to twisted ideology. We saw it happen in Europe first, in France, then Poland again — I never thought it would come back home to us like it has existed over the last two years.
Many groups are clamouring that they have it harder than others — how do we overcome that?
We can commiserate with each other about suffering and pain, but we should never compete that way. Being marginalised, being discriminated against, having racist and anti-Semitic slurs hurled is something that unites (all people). Everything against black society is also against the Jewish community. Everything against the gay and lesbian, LGBTQ community is against black and Jewish communities. Hate is hate and the spillover makes us all responsible for watching each others’ backs and standing up for each other. None of us could ever be bystanders again.
How can Hollywood combat this?
Look how many movies are now telling the stories of women. There’s a huge shift that is gender-centric, and we saw it happen at the beginning of the Harvey Weinstein downfall. Storytelling is fundamentally human. But the art of listening is what I’m hoping the Shoah Foundation is able to inspire.
[In 2018, Amblin Television, a division of Amblin Partners, Spielberg’s production company, was one of three parties to a $9.5 million settlement agreement with an actress on the CBS show Bull who was dropped after she confronted its star about inappropriate comments. A representative for Amblin declined to comment, directing inquiries to CBS, “the sole owner of the show.”]
You are rereleasing Schindler’s List after 25 years. Do you believe it can still make an impact?
At the Tribeca Film Festival, I experienced my first audience in 25 years watching Schindler’s List. It was a full house, and the reaction — I turned to Kate (Capshaw, his wife) and said “Oh my God, they’re still listening.” With this renewed cycle of hate, and initiatives at the Shoah Foundation, I thought it could open up a conversation that genocide can happen anywhere when an ordinary society goes wrong. Charlottesville and the aftermath made a huge impact on wanting to reissue the film.
If you made the film today, what are the things you would have changed?
No. There’s nothing I would have changed, absolutely nothing. I stand by the film as it has stood its own test of time.
What more can we do? What do you plan to do?
Teachers and parents who need to take responsibility for the acceptance of hatred in the fabric of society. I’m working with the Discovery Channel and the Academy Award-winning filmmaker Alex Gibney on a six-hour study called “Why We Hate.” I’m not planning any more dramatisation on the Holocaust itself. I’m putting all my attention on the documentary format.
