All Current News Stories


NEH Grant to Fund Transcription, Translation of Guatemalan Genocide Survivor Testimonies


A longtime scholar affiliate of the USC Shoah Foundation has received a $50,000 National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) grant to transcribe and translate the Maya-Kaqchikel and Spanish-language testimonies of survivors of the Guatemalan genocide. Read More

We Remember Damas Gisimba, 61, Savior of More than 400 Rwandans During Genocide


The USC Shoah Foundation mourns the passing of Damas Gisimba, the director of a Kigali orphanage who sheltered and saved the lives of over 400 people, mostly children, during the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda. Later in life, he headed the Gisimba Memorial Center, a charitable organization that provided after-school programs for disadvantaged children and served as a place of remembrance for victims of the genocide. Read More

Defying Horrors of Teenage Years in Auschwitz, Joshua Kaufman, 95, Embraced Life


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. Read More

Judge Thomas Buergenthal, 89, Pioneer of International Human Rights and One of Auschwitz’s Youngest Survivors


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. Thomas was just shy of 11 years old when he was liberated from the Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp after enduring a death march from Auschwitz, where he survived by volunteering to work. Read More

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.   Read More

Center Founding Director Wolf Gruner Authors New Book About Individual Jewish Resistance to Nazi Persecution


The USC Dornsife Center for Advanced Genocide Research is delighted to announce the upcoming publication of the book Resisters: How Ordinary Jews Fought Persecution in Hitler's Germany. Authored by Center Founding Director Wolf Gruner, the book will be published by Yale University Press on August 29, 2023. Read More

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