Leading Change Through Testimony

The Institute currently has more than 55,000 video testimonies, each one a unique source of insight and knowledge that offers powerful stories from history that demand to be explored and shared. The Visual History Archive forever preserves the faces and voices of the people who witnessed history, allowing their firsthand stories to enlighten and inspire action against intolerance for generations to come.

Our mission is to develop empathy, understanding and respect through testimony.
Through our research and educational programs, the Institute harnesses the power of its archive of personal testimonies from witnesses to genocide in order to do our part to build a better world. (Photo: Edith Umugiraneza, a survivor of the 1994 Genocide Against the Tutsi in Rwanda; and George Weiss, a Holocaust survivor.)
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"Makeshift Murder: The Holocaust at its Peak" - Public lecture by Peter Hayes (Northwestern University), 2020-2021 Sara and Asa Shapiro Scholar in Residence
Language: English
"In Search of the Drowned in the Words of the Saved: Testimonial Fragments of the Holocaust" - Public lecture by Gabór M. Tóth, 2018-2019 Center Postdoctoral Research Fellow
Language: English
"Shabbiha: Assad’s Paramilitaries and Mass Violence in Syria" - Public lecture by Uğur Ümit Üngör is Associate Professor at the Department of History at Utrecht University Uğur Ümit Üngör (Associate Professor of History, Utrecht University)
Language: English
Latest News
Dario Gabbai, Auschwitz Sonderkommando survivor, dies at 97
The portrait I have been working on of Dario isn’t complete yet, but what an honor it was to have met him and is now to engage with his testimony through the act of painting,” said David Kassan of hi
Friday, March 27, 2020 - 9:47am
COVID-19: IWitness Provides Digital Resources for Educators and Families for Virtual Learning
As local communities assess and adjust to the needs of the world community—and as many schools shift from in-person to virtual classrooms—IWitness and its standards-aligned resources are ready to help educators and parents support students learning.
Wednesday, March 18, 2020 - 3:59pm
USC Shoah Foundation Begins Beta Testing of the First German Language Dimensions in Testimony at Deutsches Technikmuseum
Museum Visitors engage with Interactive Biography of Acclaimed Cellist and German-Born Holocaust Survivor Anita Lasker Wallfisch.
Monday, March 9, 2020 - 11:07am
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Continuity, Escalation, and Local Actors: Hamidian Massacres and the Armenian Genocide
An online lecture by Mehmet Polatel (University of Southern California) 2019-2020 Center Junior Postdoctoral Research Fellow In the 1890s, Armenians in the Ottoman Empire became the targets of a wave of massacres, leading to the deaths of more than 100,000 people and the uprooting of many more. This process also brought about a massive...
  • April 13, 2020
Together We Are Stronger Than Hate
Stronger Than Hate, an initiative that draws on the power of eyewitness testimony to help students and the general public recognize and counter antisemitism, racism, xenophobia and other forms of hatred.
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Our 2018 Annual Impact Report is Available
See how your support helped us make a measurable change.
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You can help us make a difference
Our education programs bring the voices of survivors into classrooms, impacting future generations to build a better world based on empathy, understanding and respect.
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