2020 Year in Review

As we wrap up a very challenging year for many across the globe, we want to share highlights of just some of the work our Institute team and our partners have accomplished during the ongoing pandemic.

COVID-19: IWitness Provides Digital Resources for Educators and Families for Virtual Learning

March 18, 2020

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.

Educators Find Online Expertise and Content in IWitness

May 5, 2020

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, USC Shoah Foundation education team has adapted its already robust online content and tools in IWitness to meet current educational demands for online teaching and learning. Nearly 4,000 users have accessed the resources on the COVID-19 page in IWitness, which offers a curated suite of virtual classroom-ready resources in multiple languages for educators and students around the world.

Archival Ingenuity Saves Mold-Ridden Testimonies from Oblivion

August 18, 2020

Alan Auyeung pulled on a pair of latex gloves and a N95 face mask. For good measure, he placed a pair of protective goggles over his eyes too. A trip to the supermarket? In these Covid-19 times, it could have been but, in fact, Auyeung was preparing for a task of quite a different nature: saving the testimonies of Holocaust survivors, whose eyewitness accounts of Nazi atrocities were at risk of being eaten away by mold.

USC Shoah Foundation, National Historical Museums in Sweden, and the Institution for Jewish Culture in Sweden Begin Filming Socially Distant Swedish-Language Dimensions in Testimony Interviews

August 26, 2020

USC Shoah Foundation—working with on-site partners National Historical Museums in Sweden and the Institution for Jewish Culture in Sweden—recently began filming two Swedish-language Dimensions in Testimony interviews in Stockholm, Sweden utilizing innovative social distancing and filming techniques.

Institute Announces New Partnership with Ancestry® to Provide Free Access to Searchable Data from Nearly 50,000 Jewish Holocaust Survivor Testimonies

August 26, 2020

USC Shoah Foundation announced a new partnership with Ancestry® to provide free access to searchable data from nearly 50,000 Jewish Holocaust survivor testimonies that are in the Visual History Archive® (VHA).

USC Shoah Foundation Launches New Partnership with JewishGen.org

September 23, 2020

USC Shoah Foundation has partnered with JewishGen.org, an affiliate of the Museum of Jewish Heritage - A Living Memorial to the Holocaust, to integrate an index of data from nearly 50,000 Jewish Holocaust survivor testimonies found in the Visual History Archive® into the JewishGen Holocaust database.

'Stronger Than Hate @ USC' Kicks Off Events

October 23, 2020

USC Shoah Foundation and USC Museums have come together to form the USC Stronger than Hate initiative. Our collective is dedicated to root out and resist hate in its many forms: antisemitism, anti-Black and anti-Asian racism, islamophobia, xenophobia, homophobia, and the many other ways of othering. The initiative involves staff and faculty, schools and centers, and of course our students.

Testimonies and Resistance at Treblinka: Reflections from 2020-2021 Breslauer, Rutman, and Anderson Research Fellow Chad Gibbs

November 11, 2020

My recent stay at the USC Shoah Foundation Center for Advanced Genocide Research has been one of the most rewarding experiences of my academic career. My current research focuses on the social networks, geographies, and gender dynamics of Jewish resistance at Treblinka. The lack of perpetrator documents makes oral histories recorded by Treblinka survivors and witnesses all the more important.

Florida's Statewide "Willesden READS" attracts Thousands of Students and Educators

November 20, 2020

During Florida’s Holocaust Education Week, 12,000 students and educators from school districts across the state experienced a livestreamed theatrical performance and concert with author and virtuoso concert pianist Mona Golabek.

The Last Goodbye: Now Available on Oculus Rift!

December 8, 2020

The first Holocaust survivor testimony in VR, The Last Goodbye is a roomscale virtual reality experience created by USC Shoah Foundation and a world-class team of creatives and producers. The film debuted in 2017 at Tribeca Film Festival and went on to win multiple awards. For the first time ever, the experience is now available for in-home use through the Oculus platform.