ABINAL, Guatemala (AP) — Juan Chen Chen lit up as he recalled a childhood spent romping in the Guatemalan countryside, playing soccer and spinning tops while his parents harvested maize and squash.
But his voice turned somber and his eyes wandered blankly to focus on a nonexistent horizon as he described the events of March 1980, when the army came to town. Chen managed to hide, but others weren’t so lucky.
The Schindler’s List director and founder of the USC Shoah Foundation explains why we must confront the origins of hate with new focus and new tools
Seventy years ago, the Holocaust ended. Only 11 people who lived through it remain from the world of entertainment. Now, in gripping video testimonies, Oscar winners, actors, Dr Ruth and even Judy Garland's hairstylist tell their personal stories, filled with hope and horror, one last time and their themes of genocide, displacement and discrimination continue to resonate today.
More survivors of the 1937 Nanjing Massacre will be interviewed this year as part of a collaborative oral history being jointly conducted by Chinese and US research instititutes.
Neuroscientists have mapped how the human brain experiences gratitude by using the testimony of Holocaust survivors Experts used recordings of victims from archives to test and track the emotions in people who had no personal connections to mass slaughter of Jews.
Next year marks the 20th anniversary of the end of the civil war in Guatemala. During the conflict that spanned more than 3 decades, tens of thousands of indigenous Mayans were killed in what is known as the "Guatemalan Genocide." Researchers are now collecting video testimonies of the survivors to preserve their memories of what happened. Elizabeth Lee reports from Los Angeles.
USC Shoah Foundation Executive Director Stephen Smith appears on Spotlight on the News to discuss the Institute's upcoming gala in Detroit with host Chuck Stokes. Smith's segment begins at the 16-minute mark.
On Sept. 10 at a fund-raising gala at The Henry Ford museum, film maker Steven Spielberg will present the 2015 "Ambassador for Humanity" award to Bill Ford, executive chairman of Ford Motor, on behalf of the USC Shoah Foundation, which uses visual testimonies from survivors to educate people about the Holocaust and other genocides.
"If you have a story you want future generations to hear, you can always write a memoir. But modern technology is on the verge of enabling a much richer experience: a holographic display that makes it appear as if you're in the room with the viewer, and a life's worth of stories available for the asking.That's the promise of the University of Southern California's New Dimensions in Testimony project, and while the recording process is strenuous, the results are remarkable."
Read the Today Show's coverage of New Dimensions in Testimony
Snow brings a strange silence. No more so than in the vastness of Auschwitz-Birkenau, where on Jan. 27 we all began several months of remembering the unfolding of the liberation of the Nazi camps 70 years ago. That day, I walked alongside Los Angeles resident Dario Gabbai in the soft glow of candles and the shuffle of feet in freshly fallen snow.
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