Comcast and USC Shoah Foundation Announce Multi-Year Agreement to Offer 'Days of Remembrance: PastFORWARD' Series Across Multiple Platforms

PHILADELPHIA, PA and LOS ANGELES, CA – April 8, 2014 – Comcast and USC Shoah Foundation, an organization dedicated to overcoming prejudice, intolerance and bigotry through the educational use of its visual history testimonies, today announced that they have entered into a five-year partnership to annually bring the series “Days of Remembrance: PastFORWARD” to Comcast Xfinity customers On Demand, through the Xfinity TV Go app and online.

Building on the tremendous success of the first Comcast/USC Shoah Foundation partnership in 2011, Comcast will carry the award-winning films and other features about the Holocaust exclusively and at no cost for seven weeks starting today through May 25 and in conjunction with the U.S. National Days of Remembrance (April 27 – May 4, 2014), a commemoration of the Holocaust held every spring. 

Each year, the series will be themed with a feature film anchoring the program offerings.  The 2014 series theme is “The Schindler’s List Legacy Series,” showcasing the Academy Award winning film Schindler’s List as the feature film, marking its 20^th anniversary and including a special introduction by director Steven Spielberg. In addition to Schindler’s List, documentary films and firsthand accounts from Holocaust survivors and witnesses will be available as part of the series, including:

• Voices from the List: A documentary featuring interviews with 11 survivors saved by Oskar Schindler, adding a new dimension to the story.
• Spotlight on Testimony: Full length testimonies of additional people saved by Oskar Schindler that are a part of USC Shoah Foundation’s Visual History Archive.
• Witnesses for the Future: True stories of extraordinary people risking themselves to save others facing genocide, including: To Save a Life, Like Angels Sent from Heaven and Where is My Home?

• The Story of the USC Shoah Foundation: A look at how the USC Shoah Foundation began and its work today.  

“We are honored to partner once again with the Shoah Foundation to bring important films and stories about the Holocaust to millions of people across the nation,” said Charisse R. Lillie, Vice President of Community Investment of Comcast Corporation and President of the Comcast Foundation.  “By leveraging our technology and platforms, we are able to help the Institute continue their mission of raising awareness and educating people about overcoming prejudice, intolerance and bigotry.”

“Reliving painful memories was not an easy choice for many of the people who gave their testimony,” USC Shoah Foundation Executive Director Stephen D. Smith said. “But as unwilling witnesses to one of the darkest chapters in history, they were keenly aware that their stories not only needed to be told, but shared with the world. Our partnership with Comcast will help make that happen.”

Comcast will deliver more than 30 hours of content across multiple platforms, inducing Xfinity On Demand, online and through the Xfinity TV Go app. Comcast customers can find the content in the On Demand library by selecting the “Specials” category and then “Days of Remembrance.”

To build awareness of the partnership and the offering, Comcast will carry a national Public Service Announcement on Comcast Cable systems nationwide.

Comcast is committed to help broaden the reach of important organizations and causes and to bring important content to customers.  In 2013, Comcast commemorated the 50th Anniversary of the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom with His Dream, Our Stories, a first of its kind interactive multimedia video compilation chronicling the Civil Rights Movement’s history and impact.  The company also partnered with the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum in 2011 to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Kennedy Presidency by creating an On Demand destination featuring one of the largest public offerings of JFK content outside of the JFK Library.

Established in 1994 by Steven Spielberg to collect and preserve the testimonies of survivors and other witnesses of the Holocaust, USC Shoah Foundation maintains the Visual History Archive, one of the largest video digital libraries in the world with nearly 52,000 video testimonies from 58 countries and in 34 languages. In addition to testimonies from witnesses and survivors of the Holocaust, the Visual History Archive has expanded to include testimonies from other genocides, including the Rwandan Tutsi Genocide and Nanjing Massacre. Testimonies from the Armenian and Cambodian genocides will be added in 2015, along with testimonies from Jews living in North Africa and the Middle East during World War II.