Learn about the Last Chance Testimony Initiative

We are currently recording survivors and other witnesses of the Holocaust. If you are a survivor or know someone who is, we would love to hear from you. We are also looking for interviewers.

Learn more
The Shoah Foundation Story

Watch our video introduction to learn about the Institute’s history and its current mission at the University of Southern California.

Latest News

Marta Wise, 88, Child Survivor in Iconic Auschwitz Photo, Focused on Educating Young People
USC Shoah Foundation mourns the passing of Marta (Weiss) Wise, who was ten years old when she was liberated from Auschwitz, having endured the medical torture of Josef Mengele, along with her sister, Eva (Weiss) Slonim. She was 88. Marta and Eva were among a group of children pictured in a photograph—a still from a film shot by a Soviet cameraman soon after the liberation of Auschwitz—that became an iconic image of the horrors of the death camp where nearly one million Jews were killed during the Holocaust. Read More
Thursday, May 25, 2023 - 2:01pm
USC Shoah Foundation Launches Lecture Series to Address Antisemitism
USC Shoah Foundation this fall launches a new Antisemitism Lecture Series to showcase to wider audiences the latest scholarly research on the topic and convene some of the leading scholars in the field.   Read More
Wednesday, May 17, 2023 - 11:55am
Boredom and Excitement at Sea: Jewish Refugees' Experiences on Shanghai-bound Ships
Between 1938 and 1940 an estimated 17,000 mostly Austrian and German Jews traveled from Europe to Shanghai, many on luxury liners. They were escaping the upsurge of violent antisemitism in Europe and headed primarily to Shanghai, at the time one of the few places in the world without any immigration barriers. Read More
Wednesday, April 26, 2023 - 10:46am

More News

Education

New Partnership to Integrate USC Shoah Foundation Testimonies into Latin American Curriculum
USC Shoah Foundation Launches Armenian Genocide Education—Keep the Promise Teacher Fellowship Program
USC Shoah Foundation Releases Dimensions in Testimony Interview with Mona Golabek

Research

Brazilian Scholar Studies Testimonies Related to Anti-Nazi Resistance in Latin America
New Mickey Shapiro Academic Chair to Deepen, Expand Study of Holocaust Education
Research Fellow Explores Treatment of Gender, Sexuality and Sexual Violence in VHA interviews

Community Connections

Partnership Brings Survivor Voices to Hearts and Homes: This Yom HaShoah, USC Shoah Foundation and Zikaron BaSalon are expanding a grassroots revolution that is changing how the Holocaust is commemorated.
Dancers Give Expression to the Emotions of Testimony
A New Generation Embraces Music the Nazis Tried to Stifle

Collections

Boredom and Excitement at Sea: Jewish Refugees' Experiences on Shanghai-bound Ships
Dimensions in Testimony Education Releases Interview with Nuremburg Prosecutor Ben Ferencz
Nearly 80 Years After The Holocaust, A Survivor Tells His Story

Voices from the Archive

One Youth Group, An Army, and Two Uprisings—The Resistance of Joseph Greenblatt: On the 80th anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, we remember a hero
Theary Seng: A Little Girl in a Cambodian Prison Finds a Cruel Calling for Justice From The Killing Fields of Cambodia to a Life of Activism
Nearly 80 Years After The Holocaust, A Survivor Tells His Story

Technology

Past, Present and Future: Redesigned Visual History Archive to Expand Global Access to Holocaust and Genocide Testimonies
Starling Lab and Hala Systems file Cryptographic Submission of Evidence of War Crimes in Ukraine to the International Criminal Court
The Starling Lab for Data Integrity Announces Inaugural Starling Journalism Fellows

We Remember

Marta Wise, 88, Child Survivor in Iconic Auschwitz Photo, Focused on Educating Young People
We Remember Concentration Camp Liberator Alan Moskin, 96, Advocate for Holocaust Education and Remembrance
Dimensions in Testimony Education Releases Interview with Nuremburg Prosecutor Ben Ferencz

Family Stories

Child survivor Rena Quint’s 1998 testimony is an amalgam of her own memories, and details she put together after years of research.
Rena Quint, Child Survivor, Found Herself In Her Family History
Armenian Scholar Finds Lost Songs in USC Shoah Foundation’s Visual History Archive
In the Throes of the Armenian Genocide, His Mother Protected Him and Saved More Than a Hundred Others: Sam Kadorian

Watch and Share

Testimony of the Multitude
Language: English
If These Bones Could Speak
Early Armenian Pilgrimages to the Killing Fields of Dayr al-Zur
Language: English
How Neuroscience Can Help Us Reimagine Learning About the Holocaust
Language: English

Creative Storytelling

Our storytelling projects are both based on and inspired by the more than 55,000 testimonies in the Institute’s archive. They offer a deeper look into the emotional complexities of our survivor stories and told through the written word, video, audio and photography. They are opportunities 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.

The Memory Generation: Helen Colin: The First Testimony
Hela Goldstein’s testimony given to the British Film and Photographic Unit on April 24, 1945 is believed to be the first-ever audio-visual testimony given by a Holocaust survivor. As a 22-year old victim, she spoke from Bergen-Belsen, the Nazi concentration camp where she was imprisoned upon liberation. Standing at the foot of a mass grave with her killers before her, Hela recounted what she experienced. By telling her story in the face of death, she became a foremother of testimony.
Podcasting With The Archive: From We Share The Same Sky to The Memory Generation
Twenty-one-years after my grandmother recorded her testimony with USC Shoah Foundation, I teamed up with the Institute to create a podcast about my own decade-long journey to retrace her war story. It would be the first-ever narrative podcast to be based around survivor testimony. After years of research, criss-crossing international borders, living in stranger’s homes, and harmonizing history with the politics of today, I began to sit with her voice. “I always felt very guilty,” she told the interviewer about her survival.
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. One story in particular involves a reunion between Betty Grebenschikoff and Ana María Wahrenberg.
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.

The Willesden Project

Inspired by the power of story to transform lives, this groundbreaking initiative available in IWitness combines testimony, technology and music to reshape Holocaust education.

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.
Donate Today