100 Days to Inspire Respect & Hope
Week 1: Inspire Respect

Modeled after the aggressive 100-day agenda initiated by President Franklin D. Roosevelt when he took office in 1933, the initiative provides teachers with free online resources organized along weekly themes designed to help students develop the skills and capacity to counter some of the most difficult topics of hate, racism, intolerance and xenophobia that threaten democracy.  

Learn more at IWitness
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.

Upcoming Events

26
Jan
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Strategies for Fighting Anti-Semitism in the United States
USC Shoah Foundation Event
1:00 pm PST/4:00 pm EST/8:00 am AEDT (+1)  Join USC Annenberg for a conversation about combatting anti-Semitism in the United States.…
  • January 26, 2021
27
Jan
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Volevo Solo Vivere Screening
USC Shoah Foundation Event
This documentary chronicles the Holocaust as experienced in Italy, from the racial laws Mussolini enacted in 1938 through the German invasion in 1943 and the liberation of Auschwitz in 1945. The experiences are made personal through the use of testimony from the archive of the USC Shoah Foundation Institute for Visual History and Education.…
  • January 27, 2021 to January 30, 2021
27
Jan
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Impudent Jews: Forgotten Individual Jewish Resistance in Nazi Germany
Center for Advanced Genocide Research Event
The USC Casden Institute presents a Casden Conversation featuring Dr. Wolf Gruner in conversation with Dr. Steve Ross …
  • January 27, 2021

Latest News

100 Days to Inspire Respect & Hope
In January 2017, USC Shoah Foundation launched 100 Days to Inspire Respect to provide teachers of civics, history, English and other subjects new thought-provoking resources for the first 100 days of the incoming administration.   
Thursday, January 21, 2021 - 11:00am
Concert Pianist Mona Golabek Brings Mother’s Story to Generation of Young Readers
Two new books published today capture the extraordinary story of Lisa Jura, an Austrian Jewish refugee who survived the Holocaust and then pursued her dream to become a concert pianist.  
Wednesday, January 13, 2021 - 9:22am
USC Shoah Foundation’s Programmatic Response to the Invasion of the US Capitol
As a violent mob invaded the United States Capitol in an attempt to derail the electoral process, documented instances of antisemitism, anti-black racism, and other forms of hatred emerged.  
Monday, January 11, 2021 - 10:55am
Addressing the Violence of January 6, 2021, at the US Capitol
As we watched the violence unfold at the US Capitol, accompanied by documented displays of white supremacy, antisemitic tropes and other forms of hate, we are reminded of the words of United States Congressman Tom Lantos, the only Holocaust survivor to have served in congress. In this clip, Rep. Lantos describes his motivation to serve his country...and the emotions he felt each morning as he approached the Capitol Building.
Wednesday, January 6, 2021 - 9:40pm
May Their Memories Be A Blessing
The Institute mourns the passing of members of our community in 2020, including survivors who have given testimony Hanna Pankowsky, Dario Gabbai, Anneliese Nossbaum, Éva Székely, Itka Zygmuntowicz,
Wednesday, December 30, 2020 - 8:00am
Holocaust Survivors awarded Germany’s Order of Merit
In recognition of their service as witnesses to the Holocaust, German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier honored survivors Anita Lasker-Wallfisch and Henrietta Kretz with the highest civilian honor, the Order of Merit. Due to the pandemic, the president was unable to confer the medals personally but sent handwritten notes acknowledging their dedication to keeping the memory of the Holocaust alive and providing a strong voice against current antisemitism, right extremism and racism.
Friday, December 18, 2020 - 2:51pm

Creative Storytelling

Our storytelling projects are both based on and inspired by the more than 55,000 testimonies in the Institute’s archive. They are a deeper look into the emotional complexities of our survivor stories and told through the written word, video, audio and photography. They are an opportunity to explore the impact that these voices have and the way in which testimony drives our understanding of conflict and grief as well as resilience, resistance and hope.

2020 Storytelling Wrap Up
Now, many (many) months into this fight against Covid-19, it feels like we are rewriting our own story. It is like our obsession with separation has been viewed in a new lens, a wider one. The stories we are now drawn to are those of connections, even if experienced by individuals who are thousands of miles apart. And, once again, when digging into the Visual History Archive for stories of the past that exemplify this idea, there is no shortage of testimonies to lean on.
Thursday, January 7, 2021 - 1:55pm
Teaching With Testimony
Twenty-five years ago, in October, 1995, a then 72 year-old Fanny Starr sat down in her living room in Denver, Colorado and recorded a two-hour long testimony with USC Shoah Foundation. Fanny was born as Fala Granek in 1922 in Lodz, Poland -- a diverse city where Jewish and Polish students intermingled. Her family was modern yet traditional. They spoke Polish, kept kosher, went to public school, and celebrated the Jewish holidays; she and her four siblings were assimilated in the way that many young Jewish people in the United States are today.
Friday, October 23, 2020 - 9:39am
Last Chance Testimony Collection
This past May, a friend sent me an article he knew I would appreciate. It was an opinion piece in the New York Times titled “Burying My Bubby During the Pandemic” written by a comedy writer named Eitan Levine who, like me, grew up with a grandmother who survived the Holocaust. I began to read and found myself immediately wrapped inside his writing which was so honest it was cathartic. I immediately reached out to Eitan and asked if his grandmother’s testimony was in USC Shoah Foundation’s Visual History Archive.
Thursday, October 22, 2020 - 2:06pm

Watch and Share

Armenian Voices from the Visual History Archive: Elise Taft
Merry Christmas
Language: English
Webinar: New Castle Human Rights Day: December 7, 2020
Language: English
Locating Women in the Revolt: Gender and Spaces of Resistance at Treblinka
Online Lecture
Language: English
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 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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