The Fortunoff Archive currently holds thousands of video testimonies produced in cooperation with thirty-six affiliated projects across North America, South America, Europe, and Israel. The archive contains testimonies of individuals with first-hand experience of the Nazi persecutions, including those who were in hiding, survivors, bystanders, resistants, and liberators. Testimonies were recorded in the language the witness preferred and range in length from 30 minutes to over 40 hours (recorded over several sessions).

Instructions for access:

Step 1: Register in Aviary

Go to the Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies. Once in the Fortunoff Video Archive, click the Login button. Once the Sign in box appears, click the Join now! link at the bottom. Please check the password help if you have trouble creating a password.

Step 2: Receive Confirmation Email

After you submit the form, you will receive a confirmation email. Check your spam if it doesn’t show up in your inbox. This is simply to verify that you are indeed a human and not a bot.

Step 3: Search and Request Access to Testimonies

Return to the Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies, login if necessary, and then search for a testimony. You can also click the Playlists link or the Collections link at the top of the page to browse testimonies. Click on a testimony and request access. You only need to request access to one testimony to obtain viewing rights for the entire collection. You should receive an approval email a few minutes after you make your request. You will also receive a link to the film you requested.

Note: If you are off campus, the link provided in the email will not work. You need to access this link to the Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies first.  Follow STEP 4 below to view videos from off campus.

Step 4: View Requested Testimonies

Once you get the approval email for your first video request, you can view any of the testimonies. If you are off campus, make sure you are accessing your videos from the Fortunoff database via the UTD McDermott Library website as follows:

1. Access the Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies database.

2. You will be prompted for your NetID and password (this is the UTD SSO – Single Sign On).

3. Sign into the Fortunoff Video Archive with the username and password that you initially created for the Fortunoff system.

4. Search for the video that you requested access to.

Note: Once you have gone through this initial approval process with Yale and received access to one video, you can now receive access to ALL videos on the site.