USC Shoah Foundation and Comcast Reunite to Debut 'Days of Remembrance: PastFORWARD' Series

The Pianist and other music-inspired documentaries and testimonies anchor this year’s free offerings on Xfinity On Demand and Xfinity TV Go, in conjunction with the U.S. National Days of Remembrance. (Photo: Benjamin Ealovega)

USC Shoah Foundation, an organization dedicated to overcoming prejudice, intolerance and hatred through the educational use of its visual history testimonies, and Comcast today announced the availability of the annual "Days of Remembrance: PastFORWARD" series, part of a five-year partnership that offers the series to Xfinity customers through Xfinity On Demand and the Xfinity TV Go mobile platforms. The series is also available online to any Internet user nationwide at Xfinity.com/daysofremembrance.

Comcast is carrying the award-winning films and other features about the Holocaust exclusively and at no cost from April 15 through June 1 and in conjunction with the U.S. National Days of Remembrance (April 12 – April 19, 2015), a commemoration of the Holocaust held every spring.

This year, the series is themed around the music that inspired and gave hope to so many survivors. It will showcase the Academy Award-winning film The Pianist as the feature film, and include a special introduction by Adrien Brody. In addition to The Pianist, documentary films and firsthand accounts from Holocaust survivors and witnesses will be available as part of the series, including:

• One Day in Auschwitz: Holocaust survivor Kitty Hart-Moxon makes a final return to Auschwitz with two 16-year-old girls who are the same age she was when she and her mother were sent to Auschwitz in 1943. As Hart-Moxon tells them her story of daily existence, themes begin to emerge: the ever-present threat of death, resilience, friendship, human strength, resisting the Nazis’ constant lethal intent, and living like an animal while still remaining human.

• Spotlight on Testimony: Eleven full-length testimonies of Holocaust survivors.

• Witnesses for the Future: True stories of extraordinary people risking themselves to save others facing genocide, including: Auschwitz, Melodies of Auschwitz, Music Saved My Life and Notes of Survival.

• The Past is Present: Journey Through Testimony: A short documentary that follows teachers and students on the educational trip to Poland.

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

"This year’s programming helps bring attention to a topic often missing when discussing the Holocaust," said USC Shoah Foundation Executive Director Stephen Smith. "But music played a vital role in the lives of many victims, bringing both solace, comfort and hope in a time of utter despair."

"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."

Comcast will deliver 37 hours of content across multiple platforms, including Xfinity On Demand and the Xfinity TV Go mobile app and website. Comcast customers can find the content in the On Demand library by selecting the "Specials" category and then "Days of Remembrance." The content is also available to non-Comcast customers online to any Internet user nationwide at Xfinity.com/daysofremembrance.

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

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.