One Planet, One People
These restored images erase much of the distance we place between ourselves and the victims of the Shoah. Feeling closer we better grasp the pain, feel the enormity, and share the heartache and humanity of those who perished. An invaluable addition to the permanence of memory.
Rabbi David Wolpe
Max Webb Emeritus Rabbi
Sinai Temple
As we move further from the time of the Holocaust, and as the number of survivors continues to dwindle, we need to keep finding new ways to educate and to reach the hearts and minds of a population often less willing to confront the murder of six million Jews and where unchecked hatred can lead. Watching the colourised footage helps people - especially younger generations - truly grasp and comprehend the reality of what happened in a way that black-and-white archives sometimes struggle to do
Dov Forman, Author: Lilly's Promise
The colorized footage hits in a very different way than black and white. Black and white often makes the Holocaust feel like distant history, disconnected from modern times, but the color brings these people and moments into the present and makes their reality impossible to look away from. It deepens both the grief and the responsibility to remember them as individuals rather than abstractions. Projects like this are essential because they preserve truth in a way that speaks directly to today’s audiences.
Alex Teplish,
Creator of Survivor: Aron's Story Virtual Museum and book
This project is greatly needed, and those in the history field are so grateful for Project Empathy. This project has accomplished so much in the restoration and colorization of Holocaust footage. Thank you for preserving, protecting, and restoring this history. The world needs to know and understand the importance and significance of Holocaust history.
This film is beyond powerful. Watching the American soldiers as they discovered the horrors of countless corpses in Ohrdruf, all I could think was that their faces said everything. A stark contrast from the Germans, who viewed the corpses - their faces and demeanor held no remorse, some seemed genuinely afraid, others were insanely numb. But what genuinely stood out to me was how everything seemed so calm, almost dead, in the midst of such unimaginable horror.
Dr Holly Sproule
The colorization enhances the viewing process. Details become more apparent, drawing the viewer deeper into the narrative unfolding onscreen.
Eileen M. Angelini, Ph.D.
Fulbright Scholar and Chevalier dans l'Ordre des Palmes Académiques
Looking at colorized Holocaust and World War II footage is a game changer in education. The experience is so much more emotional and real, and science proves that people remember colored images better. With the decrease of survivors today and the increase of Holocaust distortion, we need to make sure we're teaching people what really happened --- and that it remains with them.
Danica Davidson, Author: I will protect you.
What struck me most is how colour changes the way we connect with the past. Black-and-white can make the Holocaust feel distant, almost like it happened in another world. Seeing the footage in colour brings these people and moments into the present. It makes their reality immediate, human, and impossible to look away from. It reminds us that these were real individuals, living real lives and dying horrible deaths, and that remembering them clearly is part of our responsibility today.
Gabriel Wilensky, Author: Six Million Crucifixions
When we saw one of the reels in colour for the first time, we made an amazing discovery. Standing among the white American soldiers were Black American soldiers. In the black and white version it is very hard to see them. In colour, they stand out immediately.
This was filmed during a segregated army, so seeing them there together is historically important. It is a part of the story that had been hidden in plain sight.
Colour did not alter the history. It helped us uncover it. Moments like this show why the work is so important.
Matt Mason, CEO Spaceship Earth
Honestly, what hit me hardest in the colorized footage was how immediately real it felt, completely stripping away the historical distance that the old black-and-white archives always created. Seeing the actual colors of the clothes, the sky, and the skin instantly transformed the victims from "figures in history" into specific, recognizable people who lived in a vibrant world just like ours. This shift is monumental because while monochrome footage felt like an ancient document, the color footage feels like a raw video recorded just yesterday, which is deeply unsettling but utterly necessary. That’s why these projects are so vital today; they give a powerful, undeniable urgency to remembrance for new generations who never knew a survivor.
Rabbi Sam Millunchick
For me, the colorization makes it more real!!!
Anyone who has interest and has visited these now sad and haunted sites will appreciate the work involved that you have performed so well.
Thank you!
Neal Hugh Hurwitz
My work is focused on teaching youth about WWII and I process through that lens. When kids see things in color vs black and white, it can seem more real which helps them connect emotionally with the people and events from the past. Your work has the power to make all of us feel many things—from empathy and nostalgia to anxiety and reflection. It helps us process and understand history better.
Deb Bowen, Creator A BOOK by ME
"When I was first told about this project, I went to view the material as a favour to a friend, as I wasn't even sceptical that it could make a difference to me. I have spent many sad times of my life looking at images - in books, at Yad Vashem and Holocaust memorials from Shanghai and San Jose, Costa Rica to Paris, London and Nottingham and of course in its own way Shindler's list. I didn't think anything could impact me and move me more than the accumulated images of the destruction that befell my family and so many others. As I watched the restored images I realised I was wrong! The images in colour were to me a new and powerful harrowing sense of the horror.
David Lerner
Seeing the corpses of burnt innocent victims and starved inmates from over 80 years ago reinforces the recognition of the brutality humans can have against Jews.
Spaceship Earth's critical project of colourizing these films brings home the reality of the Holocaust and is an important tool in the fight against Holocaust denial.
While the graphic nature of these films make them very difficult to watch, projects like these are vital in the fight against Holocaust denial and for self awareness.
I strongly encourage people to watch these films, however difficult that might be, and to support this project.
Gidon Ariel
Adding color to film that we are accustomed to seeing in black and white makes the characters and events much more tangible. The victim, who previously seemed like a distant figure from the past, suddenly becomes a real person—with skin color, eyes, hair, and clothing that can be imagined as realistic. The color connects the viewer to the moment, and evokes a sense that the events did not happen “once upon a time,” but actually in our world, not so far away.
Dr Nachum Frenkel
The colourised footage definitely made the historical events a lot more vivid and modern! It definitely made everything seem a lot more relatable. It really made me reflect on the horrors of the Holocaust and how we, as the later generation, should prevent this from happening again.
Muse Or
What struck me most when watching the colourised footage was that the detail and realism, were much more enhanced and fundamentally transformed the images from a distant subject to a perception of modern day, to a sense of realism.
The enhanced detail and realism that these were human beings, people who I may have passed on the street, who I may have known, who were no longer treated as human beings but as a product that was discarded, were treated in such an abhorrent manner with no respect for their lives or life in general.
David Goldring
Something happens when I watch old black-and-white films or see vintage photographs that have been colorized. They become something else—familiar, yet changed. The color draws me in, makes the past feel more immediate, more alive. But it also unsettles me a little. I'm drawn to the humanity it reveals, but what was once a record of truth now feels slightly reimagined, as if history has been retouched. I can’t decide if that makes the moment more real or less so. It’s beautiful and disquieting all at once—an invitation to look closer, and a quiet reminder of how easily even memory can be altered.
Jackie Goldstein, Project Yellow
The colourised footage makes it hard to look away. It brings the shocking reality of what happened into the present. People become identifiable and details of the shear brutality and horror are so much clearer.
“Emotion” is the word that keeps coming into my mind when watching the footage. The colourised films better show the emotion on faces (or lack of it on the faces of the Nazis). Watching the footage also makes me feel emotional for the awful suffering, disrespect, and inhumanity the Jewish people endured.
The importance of the colourised footage cannot and should not be underestimated. Without it, the horrifying details of the events that occurred during the Holocaust will just be consigned to history for future generations to learn about but with no emotion attached.
Karen Margesson
As a Holocaust Artist, I study B&W photos of the enslaved dead and dying in the Nazi death camps. My imagination provides the missing color. This 'colorization' is feeble at best when contrasted with your brilliant work. You make tragedy more tragic, pain more painful, and death more deadly. The full import of the horror is only realized through you.
Beyond enhancing the viewing experience, you solidify the post-viewing memory experience. These images are vastly easier to recollect in color than in B&W.
Your efforts are commendable.
Sidney Klein, Holocaust Artist
Spaceship Earth is doing vital work in making historical film footage of the Holocaust available and accessible to the next generations. Through meticulous research and restoration work, they are not only restoring the historical black & white film footage, but also colorising it to historically accurate colors to make the footage more accessible to today’s viewers. Although I am usually skeptical of colorisation efforts, I was pleasantly surprised at how the slightly muted colors convey a sense of the past while also fitting into today’s predominantly color media landscape.
While I have seen color photographs from the World War II era, I cannot recall ever seeing color archival footage. It is striking to see the exact green of the US Army uniforms and the desolate colors of the concentration camps. In color, the footage no longer seems like it is from a distance past, but rather from a closer era. In an age when AI is being used to generate fake “historical” footage and false narratives, it is all the more important to preserve real historical documents and present them in a form suitable for modern viewers. I applaud the efforts of Spaceship Earth, and look forward to see their future restoration projects.
Rick Minnich, Documentary Filmmaker
The visual impact of the footage being in colour compared to black and white is stunning and powerful. It really brings the issue to life and forced me, as a viewer, to stop and think about the horrific events that took place back then.
As an avid supporter of the British Legion, it reminded me of the phrase “Lest we forget”. It is important that we recognise man’s inhumanity to man so we can focus on negating it going forward.
Andy Gwynn
As someone who has studied the Holocaust extensively, I thought I understood the visual record of the camps, but seeing the colorized footage was something entirely different. The addition of color collapses the distance between past and present; it removes the sense of “otherness” that black-and-white images can create and makes the individuals in the footage feel recognizably, painfully real. For students, this shift is profound.
Colorized film has the power to cut through abstraction and help them grasp that the people in these images lived full, ordinary lives before being subjected to unimaginable circumstances. It encourages empathy, deepens historical understanding, and makes the responsibility of remembrance far more immediate. Projects like this are essential for education today, because they help new generations connect to history not as something distant, but as something that demands their attention and humanity.
Elizabeth Hosier, Experienced Museum Professional
Wow. Insanely powerful and devastating. Thanks for sharing this holy work.
Jennifer S.
The colourised version of the footage gives the images a greater impact and makes them feel contemporary. This increases the feelings of horror and revulsion felt when viewing the film and lifts it from being another historical war story you read and hear about to something that feels very real. The stronger emotions this evokes prove that projects such as this not only give us a greater understanding of the suffering which occurred in the past, but also a greater determination to ensure this is never repeated in the future, which in the current climate is vital.
Teresa Chapman