Affiliation / Profession: Leslie Swift, MA, has worked at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum for more than 15 years. She currently holds the title of Film Researcher in the Steven Spielberg Film and Video Archive of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. She worked for many years in the Photo Archives of the USHMM and thus has a comprehensive knowledge of the visual history of the Holocaust, including prewar Jewish life, wartime footage, and immediate postwar subjects such as liberation, life in displaced persons’ camps, and war crimes trials.
Research interests: Unique amateur footage related to the Holocaust including: prewar Jewish life, American amateur films that record the early stages of the Holocaust, amateur footage of liberation, and amateur footage of Displaced Persons’ camps.
Current research project: Work with individual donors and film archives to compile a comprehensive collection of Holocaust-related footage.
Latest publications: Film compilations including: Three part edited series of unique USHMM-owned amateur films titled: Jewish Life before World War II; Inside Nazi Germany; Liberation and Return to Life [TRT 60 minutes] Shoah: Unseen Interviews [TRT 54 minutes]; Europe on the Brink of War: the Baker and Bryan Film Collections; “Yes there was a World: Prewar Jewish Life on Film” upcoming in Amateur Film Archaeology, the first German-language anthology devoted to the topic of amateur films.
Contact:
Leslie Swift, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
100 Raoul Wallenberg Place, SW
Washington DC 20024