Joe Adamson
Like many Holocaust survivors, Joe Adamson had been reluctant to speak of his experiences, which included a series of relocations brought about by the rise of Nazism: from his birthplace in Koenigsberg, Germany to Frankfurt Oder to live with his grandparents—whose house was ransacked on Kristallnacht—and then to England on the Kindertransport when he was 14, arriving at Weston-at-the-Sea with a small suitcase and no knowledge of English. Later, he worked as a translator for the U.S. Army on a team that interrogated Nazis and was at the front with troops who liberated Mauthausen.
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Path: /get-involved/donor-spotlights/joe-adamson
2020
Andrea and Barry Cayton
In her philanthropic pursuits, Andrea Cayton has made a point of focusing on education, supporting institutions such as the Cayton’s Children Museum and Holocaust Museum LA. By focusing in part on “education about humanity,” according to Cayton, she and her family hope to help children “learn about the past and be more tolerant.” When it comes to issues like prejudice and hatred, Cayton believes it’s “harder to change older minds. But if you start young, you are more likely do so.”
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Path: /get-involved/donor-spotlights/andrea-and-barry-cayton
2020
Elisabeth Citrom
Elisabeth Citrom bears a sense of responsibility in telling her survival testimony: “I have a duty to share my story for the next generations to hear, in the hope they will get something from it.” Born in Romania, she survived the children’s barracks at Auschwitz-Birkenau and was taken on a death march to Lenzing, where she was eventually liberated by Americans in 1945. She then lived in Israel where she served as an officer in the Israel Defense Forces before settling in Sweden to raise a family.
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Path: /get-involved/donor-spotlights/elisabeth-citrom
2020
Jerry and Carol Coben
Board of Councilors Life Member Jerry Coben can pinpoint a moment that highlighted the importance of his involvement with USC Shoah Foundation. During a discussion with his son David about family history, David mentioned how much more meaningful he found the personal writings of Jerry’s mother compared to a detailed family history written by a cousin David had never met. The difference, according to Jerry, was that David could “hear” his grandmother’s voice in her writing, having known her well, something that wasn’t the case with his cousin’s narrative.
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Path: /get-involved/donor-spotlights/jerry-and-carol-coben
2020
Tamar Elkeles and Larry Michaels
After being introduced to USC Shoah Foundation 15 years ago, Tamar Elkeles and Larry Michaels became invested in continuing the work of preserving Holocaust survivor testimonies. Many of their own relatives were killed in the Holocaust, and they keenly felt the responsibility to carry the torch for future generations.
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Path: /get-involved/donor-spotlights/tamar-elkeles-and-larry-michaels
2020
Glenn Felner
Glenn L. Felner was just 18 years old when he joined the Army during WWII. “There was an undercurrent that I recall that Jews don’t fight, that Jews are cowards. So, I had to make a statement…I wanted to prove that Jews do fight…and to get as close to the action as I possibly could,” said Felner of his enlistment, which led to a wartime experience that would see him awarded with the Combat Infantry Badge, the U.S. Bronze Star and the French Legion of Honor decoration.
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Path: /get-involved/donor-spotlights/glenn-felner
2020
Dr. Marcy Gringlas
Holocaust education remains vital—as a means of understanding the horrors of the past, and for addressing contemporary antisemitism and combating the forces that lead to genocide. Echoes & Reflections stands as one of the premiere sources for Holocaust education and professional development in the United States. Formed by a partnership among USC Shoah Foundation, Anti-Defamation League and Yad Vashem, Echoes & Reflections has reached more than 85,000 educators since its founding in 2005.
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Path: /get-involved/donor-spotlights/dr-marcy-gringlas
2020
Jodi Harris
Ruth: A Little Girl’s Big Journey is a short, animated film produced by USC Shoah Foundation. The film follows Dr. Ruth Westheimer’s early life, with Dr. Ruth’s own voice recounting how she survived the Holocaust as a young girl. According to Executive Producer Jodi Harris, the film gives viewers “a chance to discover much more about Dr. Ruth’s childhood and learn how she emerged from tragedy stronger than before.”
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Path: /get-involved/donor-spotlights/jodi-harris-0
2020
The Karp Family
Partnerships are crucial in saving the accounts of Holocaust survivors and sharing them widely. Via USC Shoah Foundation’s Preserving the Legacy Initiative, Gabriella Karp, a Holocaust survivor, along with her sons Gary and David Karp, forged a three-way collaboration in which USC Shoah Foundation digitized and preserved more than 1,000 testimonies recorded through the Holocaust Memorial Center (HMC) near Detroit and the University of Michigan-Dearborn Voice/Vision Holocaust Survivor Oral History Archive.
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Path: /get-involved/donor-spotlights/karp-family
2020
Aliza Liberman
Next Generation Council member Aliza Liberman’s philosophy for philanthropy is simple: “If you feel connected to a cause, you should get involved.” Liberman’s connection to USC Shoah Foundation comes from her upbringing in Panama, where her paternal grandfather immigrated from Poland to escape the Holocaust, in which his entire family was later murdered.
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Path: /get-involved/donor-spotlights/aliza-liberman-1
2020
Thom Melcher
Though he did not know about USC Shoah Foundation until attending an Ambassadors for Humanity Gala years ago, current Next Generation Council (NGC) Co- Chair Thom Melcher was drawn to the Institute’s work upon learning of its mission at the time—to end hatred, bigotry and intolerance. Calling the Institute’s approach to education through testimony “the best way to create lasting change,” Melcher relished the chance to be active in the fight against hatred.
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Path: /get-involved/donor-spotlights/thom-melcher
2020
Ed Mosberg
Holocaust Survivor Ed Mosberg has not slowed down. At 95, he’s dedicated much of his life to the tireless work of sharing his story and preserving the memory of those lost, which includes more than 60 of his family members. “I lost my whole family,” Mosberg said, “and I have to ensure that their story will never be forgotten.”
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Path: /get-involved/donor-spotlights/ed-mosberg-0
2020
Nancy Shanfeld
Growing up, Nancy Shanfeld was disturbed by the stories her mother and aunt told of facing antisemitism as some of the only Jewish children in their south Saint Louis neighborhood during the 1930’s. “Imagining these incidents still breaks my heart,” Shanfeld said of the harassment and threats her mother Mignon Senturia and aunt Ruth faced from children and adults alike. Though Shanfeld did not experience much direct antisemitism as a young person herself, hearing of the hatred and prejudice faced by her mother and aunt moved her greatly: “It was two little girls against the world.”
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Path: /get-involved/donor-spotlights/nancy-shanfeld
2020
Ilse-Lore and Abner Delman
In 1933, when Ilse-Lore Delman was six years old, she was kicked out of her school in Frankfurt, Germany, for being Jewish. Intuiting the threat of the growing Nazi movement within the country, her family fled for Holland in a furtive dash, leaving behind all their possessions. After a few years of peace in Tilburg, Ilse and her parents were forced into hiding after the Nazi invasion of Holland.
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Path: /get-involved/donor-spotlights/ilse-lore-and-abner-delman
2019
Jerry and Kathy Drew
In October 1942, when Nathan Drew and his wife Helen heard rumors that Nazis would liquidate the Łomźa Ghetto in Poland in which they lived, they escaped to Warsaw, avoiding by mere hours the forced removal of over 8,000 Jews to the Zambrow transit camp. In Warsaw, Nathan and Helen used false identification documents to live in the open as “counterfeit Poles,” hiding their Jewish heritage while navigating the harsh realities of Nazi occupation.
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Path: /get-involved/donor-spotlights/jerry-and-kathy-drew
2019
Nancy Fisher
Throughout the nearly 150 interviews she conducted of Holocaust survivors for USC Shoah Foundation, Nancy Fisher’s philosophy was simple: “I did my best to be a human being connecting with another human being.”
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Path: /get-involved/donor-spotlights/nancy-fisher
2019
Nancy and Jonathan Fudem
When Nancy Fudem and her son Jonathan were contemplating ways to honor the memory of Nancy’s husband Frank, a prominent San Francisco commercial real estate broker who passed away in 2012, they considered some of his lifelong passions: family, education, and his Jewish faith. His wide range of interests, from spy novels to economic theory to Talmud study, indicated a deep and curious mind that valued the power of knowledge. “Frank credited much of his success to his start as a scholarship student at York Country Day School, and was always passionate about education,” Nancy said.
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Path: /get-involved/donor-spotlights/nancy-and-jonathan-fudem
2019
Joel Geiderman
Like memory itself, the video testimony within the Visual History Archive is not permanent. Data degradation resulting from the gradual decay of storage media can result in the eventual breakdown of video and audio, rendering a testimony worthless, even in digital form. The Institute’s newly-launched Forever Fund will provide means to ensure that testimonies will live on in whatever form the future may necessitate.
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Path: /get-involved/donor-spotlights/joel-geiderman
2019
Richard Hall
For producer Richard Hall, supporting USC Shoah Foundation’s efforts to collect testimony related to the 1994 Genocide of the Tutsi in Rwanda is a natural extension of his work as a documentary filmmaker. “A good interview really connects you to the humanity of others. We are all the same, but we don’t really feel it until we have the chance to bridge the language barrier and understand context for another’s experience.”
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Path: /get-involved/donor-spotlights/richard-hall
2019
Jodi Harris
For USC Shoah Foundation Next Generation Council member Jodi Harris, contributing to the Institute is a family affair: Her mother was a docent at the first iteration of the Institute in the mid-1990s, leading tours of the trailers in which the Institute was initially housed on the backlot of Universal Studios.
Path: /get-involved/donor-spotlights/jodi-harris
2019
Marc Haves
When Marc Haves was growing up during the ’50s and ’60s in the Five Towns, a predominantly Jewish area on Long Island, one subject didn’t seem to come up during family gatherings, or in the history lessons at school, or even during conversations at his reform temple.
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Path: /get-involved/donor-spotlights/marc-haves
2019
Koret Foundation
Thanks to an extraordinary gift from the Koret Foundation, USC Shoah Foundation is partnering with the Hold On to Your Music Foundation to develop an educational program centered around The Children of Willesden Lane, a novel and musical that highlight the story of Jewish children rescued from central Europe and sent unaccompanied to Great Britain by the Kindertransport at the start of World War II.
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Path: /get-involved/donor-spotlights/koret-foundation
2019
The Kenneth T. and Eileen L. Norris Foundation
Alive through oil and acrylic, the eleven survivors of Auschwitz look forward resolutely, facing the world together, bound by their shared history. The survivors are subjects depicted in an 18-foot wide portrait that served as the centerpiece of artist David Kassan’s recent exhibition Facing Survival: David Kassan at USC Fisher Museum of Art.
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Path: /get-involved/donor-spotlights/kenneth-t-and-eileen-l-norris-foundation
2019
Sam Pond
Sam Pond, a member of USC Shoah Foundation’s Next Generation Council, has been a firm advocate for the Institute since being introduced to its work almost 15 years ago. “I’m not Jewish, but I hate hatred, and dislike ignorance,” Pond said, discussing his draw to the Institute’s work. “People don’t really understand how insidious antisemitism is. It’s growing worldwide, especially in the West.”
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Path: /get-involved/donor-spotlights/sam-pond
2019
Snider Family
As a longtime donor to USC Shoah Foundation, Pennsylvania-based The Snider Foundation has supported a variety of Institute programs, including the Countering Antisemitism Through Testimony initiative. According to Jay Snider, President of The Snider Foundation, “Our Dad [founder Ed Snider] grew up in the shadow of the Holocaust, and the survival of the Jewish people was of utmost importance to him.
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Path: /get-involved/donor-spotlights/snider-family
2019
Linda and Jim Wimmer
Like many who support USC Shoah Foundation, Linda Wimmer was drawn to the stories of survivors and the way the Institute gives their stories both a home and a platform from which to be shared. However, her connection to the Institute is more profound than passive appreciation. In 1995, Linda’s husband Jim shared with her an article in their local Allentown, Pennsylvania, newspaper discussing Steven Spielberg’s mission to collect testimony of Holocaust survivors and witnesses. Linda immediately knew that she wanted to participate.
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Path: /get-involved/donor-spotlights/linda-and-jim-wimmer
2019
David Adelman
In 1964, America’s first Holocaust memorial was unveiled in central Philadelphia at the head of Benjamin Franklin Parkway. More than 50 years later, the location surrounding this historically significant monument houses an interactive plaza, the Philadelphia Holocaust Memorial Plaza, a living monument to the 6 million lives lost in the Holocaust. The new plaza opened in October 2018 with onsite installations to inspire visitors to remember and reflect.
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Path: /get-involved/donor-spotlights/david-adelman
2018
Alan Arkatov
For USC Rossier School of Education Professor Alan Arkatov, supporting USC Shoah Foundation is a family affair. Alan’s role started when he created USC Rossier’s Center EDGE (Engagement Driven Global Education) -- a new research center dedicated to educational innovation and cross-sector partnerships that focuses on student engagement.
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Path: /get-involved/donor-spotlights/alan-arkatov
2018
Samuel D. Cozen Memorial Fund
Twenty-five years ago, the world watched as the small African country of Rwanda descended into genocidal violence. Over the course of just a few months, forces in the government, media, military and general population attacked members of the country’s Tutsi minority, killing more than 800,000 of them in an organized campaign of genocide. In the years since, as the country has rebuilt and invested in a process of investigation, justice and reconciliation, the voices of survivors have become central.
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Path: /get-involved/donor-spotlights/samuel-d-cozen-memorial-fund
2018
Alpern Family Foundation
For nearly a decade, the Alpern Family Foundation has supported USC Shoah Foundation’s efforts to collect testimony and use them around the world to combat hatred and intolerance. Executive Director Rochelle Rubin says that the Alpern Family Foundation’s dedication to the Institute is motivated by its support of Holocaust education and belief that teaching tolerance and empathy is essential to counteract hatred.
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Path: /get-involved/donor-spotlights/alpern-family-foundation
2018
Aliza Liberman
Dimensions in Testimony: Interactive Biography in Spanish
Aliza Liberman’s upbringing in Panama is inextricably tied to the Holocaust: it’s where her Polish-Jewish grandfather, a survivor, immigrated to after World War II. This deep connection to the Holocaust is the main reason Liberman chose to support the Institute’s Dimensions in Testimony (DiT) program, which enables people to engage with a prerecorded video image of a genocide survivor by asking him or her questions and hearing the survivor’s answers in real time.
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Path: /get-involved/donor-spotlights/aliza-liberman-0
2018
Lee Liberman
“I remember President Bill Clinton speaking at our 10th anniversary gala about his regret that the Genocide Against the Tutsi in Rwanda happened on his watch,” Liberman said. “A genocide was in the making, and I did not want this to be on our watch. The Institute immediately sent a team to record the survivors' testimonies to ensure the world heard directly from the Rohingya before it was too late.”
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Path: /get-involved/donor-spotlights/lee-liberman
2018
Ilia Salita
“This effort is especially important now when the world is experiencing a rise of violent antisemitism,” says Ilia Salita, CEO of Genesis Philanthropy Group. “We believe that Dimensions in Testimony will help counteract this and, more broadly, to disseminate knowledge about the tragedy of Soviet Jewry during the Shoah and the heroism of Jews who fought against the Nazis.”
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Path: /get-involved/donor-spotlights/ilia-salita
2018
Sara and Asa Shapiro
The story of Sara and Asa Shapiro is one of shared tragedy and shared success. Both were born in the small pre-war, predominantly Jewish town of Korets, in what was then Poland and is now Ukraine, into large Jewish families. Both survived the Holocaust. Sara escaped the ghetto and pretended to be a Ukrainian orphan while working as a maid. Asa was in a Russian Labor Camp in Siberia and then was subscripted into the Russian Army. They married, moved to America with practically nothing, settled in Detroit, and built a large family and a thriving business.
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Path: /get-involved/donor-spotlights/sara-and-asa-shapiro
2018
Lindsey Spindle
Lindsey Spindle, President of the Jeff Skoll Group and a member of the Institute’s Next General Council, suggested we reach out to the team at the Skoll World Forum about our Dimensions in Testimony (DiT) program, given the obvious connection to theme of proximity. Now available in select museums, DiT is an interactive biography that enables people to ask questions of survivors and receive an appropriate reply from a selection of more than a thousand pre-recorded answers.
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Path: /get-involved/donor-spotlights/lindsey-spindle
2018
Barry Sternlicht
Barry Sternlicht’s father Maurycy was only nine years old when he fled Poland in 1938. Maurycy survived the war by hiding with Czech partisans. He related his story in the testimony he gave to USC Shoah Foundation in 1998. Sternlicht never heard his father’s story until later in life. But his father’s resilience in the face of war, his success but later the displacement he faced with business setbacks in America, inspired Sternlicht to achieve his own success as a founder of the Starwood Capital Group.
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Path: /get-involved/donor-spotlights/barry-sternlicht
2018
Al Tapper
Few friends of USC Shoah Foundation have supported the Institute longer than Al Tapper. In the past two decades, he has provided essential funding for the Institute’s general operations, supporting activities across our research and education initiatives, and providing seed funding for new and innovative projects.
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Path: /get-involved/donor-spotlights/al-tapper
2018
Suzi Weiss-Fischmann
Suzi Weiss-Fischmann’s commitment to testimony-based education comes from her roots. The co-founder of OPI Products, Weiss-Fischmann was born in Hungary, the daughter of a Holocaust survivor who endured the horrors of Auschwitz. Her mother’s experiences and her own early life in Hungary reinforced the importance of education as a way of countering hatred. It’s a major reason why she has supported the Institute for more than a decade, and why she recently joined the Institute’s Board of Councilors.
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Path: /get-involved/donor-spotlights/suzi-weiss-fischmann
2018
Tammy Anderson
Tammy Anderson was first drawn to USC Shoah Foundation by her accounting firm partners Gerald Breslauer and Michael Rutman, who served on the Institute’s first board. Anderson’s involvement began with providing accounting services and blossomed into membership in the Next Generation Council (NGC).
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Path: /get-involved/donor-spotlights/tammy-anderson
2017
Naomi Azrieli
Naomi Azrieli understands the power of the written word that enables survivors’ memories to live on and be shared. As head of the Azrieli Foundation, she oversees both its philanthropy and the publication of survivors’ memoirs in illustrated volumes made free to the public.
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Path: /get-involved/donor-spotlights/naomi-azrieli
2017
Ceci Chan
While she grew up Catholic, Ceci Chan became dedicated to the Jewish concept of tikkun olam, or “repairing the world” over 20 years ago. The concept also manifests itself in the Chinese phrase that translates to “one united world,” 世界大同, which was a concept representing the highest level of the ideal social system, an equal, classless, borderless and stateless world. The concept comes from Confucius recorded in the "Book of Rites • Li Yun".
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Path: /get-involved/donor-spotlights/ceci-chan
2017
Trudy Elbaum Gottesman
Trudy Elbaum Gottesman keeps her family tree in her purse, close to her at all times, so she will always remember the names of relatives who were murdered in the Holocaust.
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Path: /get-involved/donor-spotlights/trudy-elbaum-gottesman
2017
Richard Hovanissian
In 1969, Professor Richard Hovanissian started requiring students in his UCLA seminar course to record and transcribe interviews with survivors of the Armenian Genocide. Over the course of the next 50 years, his students assembled a massive library of more than 1,000 interviews, a universe of experiences that is one of the largest collections of Armenian testimonies in the world. This year, Hovanissian donated the collection to the USC Shoah Foundation, joining the testimonies in his collection to the hundreds collected by Dr. Michael Hagopian of the Armenian Film Foundation.
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Path: /get-involved/donor-spotlights/richard-hovanissian
2017
Cole Kawana
At the age of 16, Cole Kawana traveled to Rwanda for an investigative journalism trip to learn more about the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi. While there, he made a short film, The Kindness of Strangers. The film outlines the massacre of nearly a million people over 100 days — almost a sixth of the nation’s population at the time — and also chronicled how he helped survivors by donating filters to ensure drinkable water. This led to his founding of the Clean Water Ambassadors Foundation, which donates water filters to communities in need.
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Path: /get-involved/donor-spotlights/cole-kawana
2017
William P. Lauder
Board of Councilors member William P. Lauder has been part of USC Shoah Foundation from its very beginning, when founder Steven Spielberg asked him to support a collection of interviews with Holocaust survivors. “We met on the Amblin backlot, in a conference room with a whiteboard that had upcoming movie ideas on it,” Lauder recalls. Over the next two decades, those interviews grew into the Visual History Archive, and Lauder has steadfastly backed the Institute ever since.
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Path: /get-involved/donor-spotlights/william-p-lauder
2017
Ed Mosberg
Edward Mosberg was born in Krakow and survived the Krakow ghetto, Plaszow and Mathausen concentration camps, and slave labor at the Hermann-Goering factory. His entire family was murdered in the Holocaust. He endured further tribulations before sharing his testimony with USC Shoah Foundation. A nearly fatal auto accident prevented him from his first scheduled interview, while a stroke forced him to postpone the second.
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Path: /get-involved/donor-spotlights/ed-mosberg
2017
Shael Rosenbaum
As the grandchild of four Holocaust survivors, Shael Rosenbaum, feels a duty to keep history’s flame from dimming so that the lessons of the past can remain alive and vibrant for the future. In addition to chairing the Sarah and Chaim Neuberger Holocaust Education Centre in Canada, he also served on USC Shoah Foundation’s Next Generation Council (NGC).
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Path: /get-involved/donor-spotlights/shael-rosenbaum
2017
Marilyn Sinclair
Marilyn Sinclair will never forget the day her father gave his testimony to USC Shoah Foundation. “It was the first time we came together as a family to discuss my father being a Holocaust survivor,” she recalls. “When he passed away in 2010, I realized the days of having actual witnesses to provide live testimony were numbered.”
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Path: /get-involved/donor-spotlights/marilyn-sinclair
2017
Tom Corby
Rautenberg's longtime accountant, Tom Corby, now the president of the foundation that bears the Rautenberg name, remembers Erwin as a hard-working, deeply principled man. “He established the Erwin Rautenberg Foundation to strengthen Jewish causes,” Corby says. “He wanted to make sure that the Jewish people and religion endured.”
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Path: /get-involved/donor-spotlights/tom-corby
2016
Melanie Dadourian
Melanie Dadourian is an active member of the Next Generation Council because she understands all too well the dangers of silence and denial. Her grandparents were Armenian Genocide survivors who escaped certain death in Turkey by fleeing to the United States and that history deeply affects her.
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Path: /get-involved/donor-spotlights/melanie-dadourian
2016
Jeffrey Farber
The San Francisco-based Koret Foundation shares USC Shoah Foundation’s goals of using history to build connections between communities and cultures. “An important pillar of the Koret Foundation is to create a vibrant and connected Jewish community,” Koret Foundation Chief Executive Officer Jeffrey Farber says.
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Path: /get-involved/donor-spotlights/jeffrey-farber
2016
Robert Katz
For Board of Councilors Chair Emeritus Robert J. Katz, involvement with USC Shoah Foundation stems not from a direct personal connection, but from an emotional pull he’d later identify.
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Path: /get-involved/donor-spotlights/robert-katz
2016
Aliza Liberman
The grandchild of a Holocaust survivor, Aliza Liberman wonders whether her children will feel as connected to its horrors and lessons as she does. As a member of USC Shoah Foundation’s Next Generation Council, Liberman is doing what she can to ensure future generations feel that bond by supporting the Institute’s mission.
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Path: /get-involved/donor-spotlights/aliza-liberman
2016
Hilda Mantelmacher
An Auschwitz survivor who lost her parents, little brother, and grandparents during the Holocaust, she does not know her birthday, but says, “every day I wake up is my birthday.” After the camps were liberated, Mantelmacher came to the United States in the 1950s to begin her new life. She found work and started a family. Her two daughters became teachers, and she found her own life’s work as an educator.
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Path: /get-involved/donor-spotlights/hilda-mantelmacher
2016
Sam Pond
Samuel H. Pond, managing partner of Pond Lehocky Stern Giordano and a longtime supporter of USC Shoah Foundation, decided to dedicate even more time and energy to the cause by joining the Institute's Next Generation Council after a moving conversation with Board of Councilors Chair Stephen Cozen.
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Path: /get-involved/donor-spotlights/sam-pond-0
2016
Dr. Sarah Sternklar
As a clinical psychologist and psychoanalyst, Sarah Sternklar, PhD, recognizes the powerful healing effects of words - how important and therapeutic it can be for people to tell their story. "This is a wonderful benefit for the survivors."
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Path: /get-involved/donor-spotlights/dr-sarah-sternklar
2016
Tianfu Bank
Tianfu Bank and Tianfu Group support the collection of Nanjing Massacre survivors’ testimonies for USC Shoah Foundation’s Visual History Archive and New Dimensions in Testimony project. They want to ensure that the world will learn from — and never forget — the Nanjing Massacre, which resulted in the mass rape and killing that began on December 13, 1937, and lasted for several weeks, ending nearly 300,000 lives.
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Path: /get-involved/donor-spotlights/tianfu-bank
2016
Suzi Weiss-Fischmann
Born in Hungary, Weiss-Fischmann supports USC Shoah Foundation’s International Teacher Training program to help reverse the rising antisemitism and intolerance there. She wants no one else to ever have to suffer the way her mother did — or to endure the even worse fates of those family members she never knew.
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Path: /get-involved/donor-spotlights/suzi-weiss-fischmann-0
2016
David Zaslav
“Stories have the power to educate, change people’s world view, and inspire empathy,” says David Zaslav, a member of USC Shoah Foundation’s Executive Committee and the president and CEO of Discovery Communications. “It’s a kind of understanding that can’t be replicated by history books.”
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Path: /get-involved/donor-spotlights/david-zaslav
2016
Ceci Chan, Ming Hseih and Sophia Wong
With only some 200 remaining survivors of the Japanese military’s 1937 campaign of mass killing in Nanjing, China, firsthand memories might be lost to history if not for USC Shoah Foundation and its donors. “The Nanjing Testimony Project enables the world, through our web-based educational content, to learn about this heinous crime against humanity,” says Cecilia “Ceci” Chan, who initiated the strategy to fund and support the collection.
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Path: /get-involved/donor-spotlights/ceci-chan-ming-hseih-and-sophia-wong
2015
Melinda Goldrich
Melinda Goldrich had long known about USC Shoah Foundation’s dedication to collecting eyewitness experiences — her father, Jona, gave testimony. But it was not until early in 2015 that she learned the full range of the Institute’s educational outreach. Traveling to Poland as part of the Auschwitz: The Past is Present program inspired the Aspen, Colo., resident to visit the Institute to find out more about such programs as IWitness and New Dimensions in Testimony.
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Path: /get-involved/donor-spotlights/melinda-goldrich
2015
Juliane Heyman
Juliane Heyman’s story of escaping the Holocaust is as harrowing as the rest of her life has been inspirational. At age 12, she and her family were forced to flee their home in what is now Gdansk, Poland. In a scene that could have inspired The Sound of Music, she first had to perform in a violin recital so as not to raise suspicion.
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Path: /get-involved/donor-spotlights/juliane-heyman
2015
Yossie Hollander
As the 21st century began, and time threatened to still the voices of many witnesses, Joseph “Yossie” Hollander became concerned about the state of education on the Holocaust. “It was almost frozen,” says Hollander, an Israeli technology entrepreneur whose parents survived the Holocaust. “At some point, we will not have the capability to teach with actual Holocaust survivors.”
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Path: /get-involved/donor-spotlights/yossie-hollander
2015
Kathy and Richard Leventhal
The couple is particularly excited about the New Dimensions in Testimony project, which allows testimonies to be shared through interactive three-dimensional holograms that facilitate engagement with survivors. “Having seen a demonstration and having learned how new technology enables real-time interaction with a Holocaust survivor is extremely powerful,” says Kathy. “The authenticity of that exchange leaves an indelible impression.”
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Path: /get-involved/donor-spotlights/kathy-and-richard-leventhal
2015
Thomas Melcher
Next Generation Council member Thomas Melcher is a longstanding supporter of USC Shoah Foundation. His work to foster tolerance was reaffirmed by the terrorist attacks in Paris on November 13, 2015, when 130 people were murdered with hundreds more wounded. “I fear that the regularity of these events is slowly desensitizing us all,” he says.
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Path: /get-involved/donor-spotlights/thomas-melcher
2015
George and Irina Schaeffer
The child of Holocaust survivors, George Schaeffer has supported USC Shoah Foundation’s mission since he first heard about it. His parents met after the Soviets liberated Ravensbrück, the Nazis’ largest concentration camp for women. His father had been sent there as a laborer. The couple married in 1945, the same year they were freed.
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Path: /get-involved/donor-spotlights/george-and-irina-schaeffer
2015
Mickey Shapiro
To honor his parents — now age 93 and 85 — Shapiro endowed the Sara and Asa Shapiro Annual Holocaust Testimony Scholar and Lecture Fund. The program it supports enables scholars to spend up to a month in residence at USC Shoah Foundation’s Center for Advanced Genocide Research. Each fellowship culminates in a public lecture.
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Path: /get-involved/donor-spotlights/mickey-shapiro
2015
Andrew Viterbi and Erna Finci-Viterbi
The late Erna Finci Viterbi shared a passion with her husband, Andrew, for helping people learn from the Holocaust to combat intolerance and the violence that stems from it. In November 2014, three months before Erna passed away, the Viterbis honored another person with that drive when they awarded Stephen D. Smith the inaugural Andrew J. and Erna Finci Viterbi USC Shoah Foundation Executive Director Chair.
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Path: /get-involved/donor-spotlights/andrew-viterbi-and-erna-finci-viterbi
2015
Leesa and Leon Wagner
The testimonies of Leon’s late parents, Sima and Rubin, in the Visual History Archive attest to the power of love and never giving up. Married before the war, the couple was torn apart when the Nazis sent them to separate camps. Miraculously, Rubin somehow kept his ring and, after the war, convinced an officer to take it to the nearby women’s camp, in the hope that Sima was alive and would recognize it. The couple soon reunited.
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Path: /get-involved/donor-spotlights/leesa-and-leon-wagner
2015
Ace Charitable Foundation
The ACE Charitable Foundation has been a generous long-term supporter of the Institute’s work in Rwanda. Previously, the ACE Charitable Foundation provided multi-year support for the Institute’s partnership with Aegis Trust to use testimony as a learning tool to broaden the understanding of genocide’s lasting impacts and to motivate social change.
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Path: /get-involved/donor-spotlights/ace-charitable-foundation
2014
Judy and Mark Alpert
Dr. Judy Alpert is the child of Holocaust survivors. Judy was born in Hungary in 1946, after her parents were liberated from concentration camps. When she was 10, she and her parents escaped to the United States from Budapest during the 1956 revolution. Her husband, Mark, was born during World War II and is acutely aware that if he had been born where his grandparents fled the pogroms in the late 19th century, he would have not survived the Holocaust.
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Path: /get-involved/donor-spotlights/judy-and-mark-alpert
2014
Ulrika and Joel Citron
Although they did not meet until years later in New York, both Ulrika Citron and her husband, Joel, were born in Sweden, the children of survivors of the Holocaust. “His story is very different from mine,” she says. “We’re all unique stories.”
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Path: /get-involved/donor-spotlights/ulrika-and-joel-citron
2014
Comcast
From April 8th through May 25th, which coincides with National Days of Remembrance, 219,000 viewers throughout the United States watched at least one offering from the series Days of Remembrance:PastFORWARD on Comcast’s XFINITY On Demand.
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Path: /get-involved/donor-spotlights/comcast
2014
Susan Crown
Susan Crown understands the importance of inspiring future generations to achieve unimaginable goals. Her industrialist and philanthropist grandfather, Henry Crown, who founded Material Service, which merged with General Dynamics in 1959, inspired his son, Lester, who in turn, inspired Susan.
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Path: /get-involved/donor-spotlights/susan-crown
2014
Ilse and Abner Delman
Worried about conjuring bad memories, Ilse Delman was initially reluctant to share her story with USC Shoah Foundation — The Institute for Visual History and Education. But after meeting with Institute staff, encouraged by her friend Anita Mayer, who had contributed her own testimony, and supported by her husband, Abner Delman, M.D., she shared her memories. A decade later, she remains grateful that her story will live on through the archive.
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Path: /get-involved/donor-spotlights/ilse-and-abner-delman
2014
Doug and Margee Greenberg
Their latest gift established the Margee and Douglas Greenberg Research Fellowship, an endowed fund providing permanent support for graduate or post-graduate students advancing testimony-based research.
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Path: /get-involved/donor-spotlights/doug-and-margee-greenberg
2014
Independence Blue Cross
“Chronicling the moving and powerful stories of the Holocaust is a moral imperative for all, regardless of religious faith and background”, said Dan Hilferty, president and CEO of Independence Blue Cross (IBC).
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Path: /get-involved/donor-spotlights/independence-blue-cross
2014
Andrew Intrater
Andrew Intrater describes the events leading to his involvement with USC Shoah Foundation — The Institute for Visual History and Education as “serendipitous.” Intrater, who speaks Russian and Polish, was traveling to Ukraine with a friend whose parents were born there and were Holocaust survivors.
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Path: /get-involved/donor-spotlights/andrew-intrater
2014
Masako Togo Kasloff
Masako Togo Kasloff and her late husband Philip were drawn to the USC Shoah Foundation Institute after hearing the testimony of Dario Gabbai, who was forced to work as a Sonderkommando at Auschwitz during the Holocaust.
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Path: /get-involved/donor-spotlights/masako-togo-kasloff
2014
Koret Foundation
The Koret Foundation in San Francisco awarded a $1 million matching grant supporting a project that is a model for the preservation of Holocaust testimony around the world. The Institute partnered with the Jewish Family and Children’s Services Holocaust Center to digitize and preserve the Center’s videotaped Bay Area testimonies.
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Path: /get-involved/donor-spotlights/koret-foundation-0
2014
Arthur Lev
Arthur Lev believes if young people can experience history directly rather than just reading about it in a book, they can change the world. That’s why he endowed an internship program at USC Shoah Foundation — The Institute for Visual History and Education.
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Path: /get-involved/donor-spotlights/arthur-lev
2014
Lee Liberman
Lee Liberman has been a stalwart supporter of USC Shoah Foundation –The Institute for Visual History and Education since 1999 and a member of the Board of Councilors since 2007. A resident of Melbourne, Australia, Liberman is a dedicated philanthropist with charitable interests that extend to Israel, the United States and Africa.
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Path: /get-involved/donor-spotlights/lee-liberman-0
2014
Wendy Smith Meyer
Wendy Smith Meyer first learned about the USC Shoah Foundation in 1996, when her parents, Alfred and Selma Benjamin, gave their testimony. She attended part of the interview, when her parents, who grew up in Nazi Germany, gave their first-person accounts of increasing Jewish persecution. Her uncles, Owen and Edgar Hirsch, and aunt Elise Le Hu also gave testimony.
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Path: /get-involved/donor-spotlights/wendy-smith-meyer
2014
Carolann S. Najarian
Carolann S. Najarian, M.D., was drawn to USC Shoah Foundation — The Institute for Visual History and Education through her involvement with the Armenian Film Foundation.
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Path: /get-involved/donor-spotlights/carolann-s-najarian
2014
Pears Foundation
Pears Foundation, based in London, England, is generously supporting News Dimensions in Testimony. Developed in collaboration with the USC Institute for Creative Technologies and Conscience Display, and supported by a consortium of committed donors, New Dimensions in Testimony (NDT) is a pioneer technology that allows visitors to engage in dialogue with photo-real projected images of Holocaust survivors.
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Path: /get-involved/donor-spotlights/pears-foundation
2014
Louis Smith
Hearing Holocaust survivors tell their stories in person is a powerful experience — and one that Next Generation Council member Louis Smith worried would soon be lost forever. So when he learned about New Dimensions in Testimony, a project of USC Shoah Foundation — The Institute for Visual History and Education, he wanted to give to help realize its potential.
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Path: /get-involved/donor-spotlights/louis-smith
2014
Andrew Viterbi and Erna Finci-Viterbi
Because the Viterbis understand the importance of preserving testimonies for later generations, they have long supported the Institute and its educational mission. Recently, they endowed the Andrew J. and Erna Finci Viterbi Executive Director Chair. Endowed funds are vital to ensuring the Institute’s programs and long-term sustainability as they provide permanent sources of financial support.
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Path: /get-involved/donor-spotlights/andrew-viterbi-and-erna-finci-viterbi-0
2014
Diane and Howard Wohl
Diane Wohl and her husband, Howard, have supported USC Shoah Foundation — The Institute for Visual History and Education since before it became part of the university. They appreciate how the Institute brings people together and, as she puts it, “can slice out all the propaganda and hate with its visual testimonies.”
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Path: /get-involved/donor-spotlights/diane-and-howard-wohl
2014