The USC Shoah Foundation mourns the June 6, 2023 passing of Joshua Kaufman, who survived Auschwitz and was liberated at Dachau Concentration Camp at the age of 17, and was recognized at the 2019 State of the Union address in Washington, D.C. He was 95.

The USC Shoah Foundation mourns the passing of Thomas Buergenthal, one of the youngest known survivors of Auschwitz, who later became an esteemed human rights attorney and United States representative on the International Court of Justice in The Hague. Thomas passed away on May 29, 2023, in Miami, Florida. He was 89.

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.

USC Shoah Foundation is saddened by the passing of Alan Moskin, a Jewish veteran of the U.S. Armed Forces who, at the age of 18, helped liberate Gunskirchern, a subcamp of Mauthausen Concentration Camp, in May 1945. Later in life, Alan became a tireless advocate for Holocaust education and remembrance at schools, veterans’ groups, and in the media, speaking with candor about the horror he witnessed at the camp, the brutality of combat, and the bigotry he encountered in the U.S. Army. 

Ben Ferencz, the last remaining prosecutor from the Nuremberg Trials who passed away in Florida earlier this month, gave countless interviews over the course of his illustrious career.

But surely none was longer, or more technically challenging, than the three-day testimony he gave to USC Shoah Foundation at the height of the Covid pandemic in July 2020.

The need for social distancing necessitated that filming be done remotely, with boxes of sophisticated equipment shipped to Ferencz’s modest Florida home.

We are deeply saddened by the untimely loss of our friend and colleague, Kim Simon, a beloved member and leader of the USC Shoah Foundation family for nearly three decades. Kim passed away February 28 at the age of 52 after living with a rare degenerative disease. She is survived by a husband and two daughters and leaves a rich legacy that will sustain the Institute’s mission for years to come.

USC Shoah Foundation mourns the passing of Betty Grebenschikoff, a Jewish Holocaust survivor, author, and speaker, who was reunited with a childhood friend in February 2021, 81 years after the pair had last seen one other in a Berlin schoolyard. The reunion, made possible by a longtime researcher at USC Shoah Foundation, touched hearts across the world.  

USC Shoah Foundation mourns the December 7, 2022 passing of Tom Tugend, a Berlin-born veteran of three wars and an award-winning journalist who fled the Nazi regime just months ahead of the outbreak of World War II. He was 97. 

Robert Widerman Clary was among the first 100 Holocaust survivors interviewed for USC Shoah Foundation’s Visual History Archive, and he conducted 75 interviews of other survivors. In his testimony, he talks about his instinct and talent for entertaining—honed while he was a child in Paris—saved and shaped his life.

Today we remember the lives lost at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh on October 27, 2018. The Shabbat morning attack, in which 11 worshippers were killed and six wounded—including several Holocaust survivors—was the deadliest act of antisemitic violence in United States history.

Synagogue member Judah Samet, a Hungarian-born survivor of the Holocaust, sat trapped in his car in the synagogue parking lot that Saturday morning as law enforcement agents engaged in a gun battle with the shooter.