Steven Spielberg, Ford To Make Holocaust Education Announcement

DEARBORN (WWJ/AP) - Academy Award-winning director Steven Spielberg and Ford Motor Co. Executive Chairman Bill Ford are set to announce a partnership involving the Spielberg-founded USC Shoah Foundation, which uses visual testimonies from survivors to educate people about the Holocaust and other genocides.

Spielberg and Ford are to make the announcement on Thursday following a classroom event with students and teachers from Henry Ford Academy in Dearborn.

Details of the partnership include expanding the Institute’s IWitness educational platform in the Detroit area. IWitness brings the first-person stories of survivors and witnesses of genocide from the Institute’s Visual History Archive to students via multimedia-learning activities that are accessible via devices connected to the Internet. Currently, 100 educators in Michigan –use IWitness.

"Reaching people when they'’re young is the key to changing the world with testimony," Spielberg said in a statement. "IWitness and its ability to deliver tolerance education to the Detroit region gives me great hope that together we can affect significant change."

Later Thursday, Spielberg is to present Ford with the USC Shoah Foundation's Ambassador for Humanity Award during the organization's annual gala.

Spielberg has directed dozens of films, including "Schindler's List." Ford Motor was the sole sponsor of the 1997 NBC broadcast of the Oscar-winning Holocaust drama.

Henry Ford Academy was named after the auto pioneer. Bill Ford is his great-grandson.

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