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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Dimensions in Testimony Overview
Language: English
Anneliese Nossbaum on Antisemitism Then and Now
Language: English
Visual History Archive webinar
Language: English
Latest News
In memory of Holocaust Survivor Anneliese Nossbaum
USC Shoah foundation is saddened to learn of the recent passing of Anneliese Nossbaum, who survived a Jewish ghetto and three concentration camps. Anneliese passed away March 23, 2020 after falling ill within weeks of returning from a trip that commemorated the 75-year anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz. She was 91. She was born on January 8, 1929 in Guben, Germany as Anneliese Winterberg.  At the age of two, her family moved to Bonn where her father later became the rabbi of their synagogue.  
Wednesday, April 1, 2020 - 2:27pm
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
Upcoming Events
07
Apr
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What is Home? A Conversation
RSVP Today! Twenty-six years after the Genocide Against the Tutsi, please join Finci-Viterbi Executive Director Stephen D. Smith as he discusses concepts of home with genocide survivor Edith Umugiraneza. Stephen Smith will be joined by Executive Director of Aegis Trust, Freddy Mutanguha.   On a day when Rwanda remembers its terrifying...
  • April 7, 2020
13
Apr
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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 Organized by the USC Shoah Foundation Center for Advanced Genocide Research Cosponsored by the USC Institute of Armenian Studies This is an online lecture. To request the link to the lecture, please click here...
  • 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
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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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