The late Dr. Fred Roberts Crawford, Director of Emory's Center for Research in Social Change and a witness to the liberation of Dachau, founded and directed the Project. The Witness to the Holocaust Project's original aim was to collect eye witness accounts from the soldiers who liberated the German concentration camps during World War II, from Holocaust survivors, and from other witnesses in order to refute claims that the Holocaust never occurred.

The collection includes audio and video recordings of oral histories with liberators, survivors and others; transcriptions of oral history interviews; photographs, slides and films donated by liberators; Project publications; and television programs produced by the Project.