Film on Holocaust Survivors Nominated for Emmy Awards

“Survivors of the Holocaust,” a 70-minute documentary that has its roots in the success of Steven Spielberg’s “Schindler’s List,” has been nominated for three Emmy awards, including the newly established president’s award.

The documentary combines historic footage of the 1930s and 1940s with personal testimonies of survivors, a behind-the-scenes tour of the Shoah Visual History Foundation in Los Angeles and an interview with Spielberg.

The president’s award, established by the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences, will be presented for the first time at the Emmy Awards ceremony Sept. 8 at the Pasadena Civic Auditorium.

In addition, “Survivors of the Holocaust” received nominations in the categories of Outstanding Informational Special and Outstanding Individual Achievement/Informational Programming/Picture Editing for director-editor Allan Holzman.

Producers of the documentary are the foundation’s founding directors, June Beallor and James Moll, in association with Turner Original Productions.

The goal of the Shoah Visual History Foundation, established by Spielberg two years ago, is to create a permanent videotape library of survivor testimonies.

The rationale for embarking on the project, Spielberg said at the time, could be found in the steady stream of survivors who approached him during and after the filming of “Schindler’s List.”

“They came up to me and said, ‘Let me tell you my story,'” Spielberg said. “But what they were really saying was, ‘Let me tell a camera, let me tell my story to history.'”

The foundation already has videotaped interviews with 19,000 survivors, and expects to do 50,000 by the end of 1997.

Survivors are requested to contact the foundation by phoning (800) 661-2092 in the United States and Canada, or by writing to Survivors of the Shoah Visual History Foundation, P.O. Box 3168, Los Angeles, Calif. 90078-3168.