100 Days to Inspire Respect
100 testimony clips featured on each day of 100 Days to Inspire Respect, USC Shoah Foundation's educational program from January 20-April 29, 2017. The program offers middle and high school teachers easy-to-use resources that encourage their students to grapple with difficult but important topics: hate, racism, intolerance and xenophobia.
Emmanuel Muhinda on anti-Tutsi propaganda
100 Days to Inspire Respect
Emmanuel Muhinda describes the persecution of Tutsi and anti-Tutsi propaganda he witnessed before the genocide started in April 1994. His testimony is featured in the IWitness activity, Information Quest: The Genocide Against the Tutsi in Rwanda.
Emmanuel Muhinda on anti-Tutsi propaganda
Language: Kinyarwanda
100 Days to Inspire Respect
Emmanuel Muhinda describes the persecution of Tutsi and anti-Tutsi propaganda he witnessed before the genocide started in April 1994. His testimony is featured in the IWitness activity, Information Quest: The Genocide Against the Tutsi in Rwanda.
Celina Biniaz on Acceptance
Language: English
100 Days to Inspire Respect
Celina describes what it was like returning to Poland, and later Germany, after the war. While some people she and her parents encountered were hostile toward Jews, others were kind and accepting, especially the German nun who tutored Celina.
Kizito Kalima on Discrimination at School
Language: English
100 Days to Inspire Respect
Rwandan Tutsi Genocide survivor Kizito Kalima describes a time when he and his classmates faced discrimination while he was a student.
Richard Hovannisian on Social Darwinism
Language: English
100 Days to Inspire Respect
Richard explains how social Darwinism informed the genocidal practices of the Turkish regime during the Armenian Genocide.
Paul Parks on Teaching Respect Through Testimony
Language: English
100 Days to Inspire Respect
Paul reflects on his hope that his testimony, and all of the testimonies collected by USC Shoah Foundation, can help teach respect to future generations.
Marion Pritchard on Learning Respect
Language: English
100 Days to Inspire Respect
Marion remembers the moment her father taught her to treat gay people with respect.
Carl Wilkens on Staying in Rwanda
Language: English
100 Days to Inspire Respect
Carl Wilkens, head of the Adventist Development and Relief Agency International in Kigali, Rwanda, was the only American who stayed in Rwanda during the genocide. He explains his decision to stay.
Coenraad Rood reflects on the importance of tolerance
Language: English
Coenraad Rood reflects on the importance of tolerance, respect and encourages younger people to always stand up to injustice.
Henrietta Altman on Respecting All People
Language: English
100 Days to Inspire Respect
Henrietta recalls how her parents taught her to respect all people, especially those less fortunate than she was.
Niddal El-Jabri on Countering Prejudice
Language: English
100 Days to Inspire Respect
Niddal describes how he took action to promote respect and tolerance in Copenhagen following a 2015 prejudice-fueled terrorist attack on the city's main Jewish synagogue.
Jean Sothere Ndamyuwera on Respect
Language: English
100 Days to Inspire Respect
Ndamyuwera Jean Sothere advocates respect for all people, referencing his Christian faith to make his point
Jiryar Zorthian on the Armenian Community
Language: English
100 Days to Inspire Respect
Jiryar describes some of his happy memories from his Armenian community before the Armenian Genocide began.
Tom Lantos on His Role in the Community
Language: English
100 Days to Inspire Respect
Tom, both a Holocaust survivor and US Congressman, explains how his role in the community of the United States has evolved.
Holocaust Survivors on the Police in the Holocaust
Language: English
100 Days to Inspire Respect
Three survivors of the Holocaust share memories about their experiences with police during the Holocaust.
Lea Faranof on the Community of Los Angeles
Language: English
100 Days to Inspire Respect
Lea discusses her experiences joining the Boyle Heights community of Los Angeles when she immigrated to the United States after the Holocaust.
Clara Isaacman on Celebrating Holidays
Language: English
100 Days to Inspire Respect
Jewish Holocaust survivor Clara Isaacman explains how she and her Christian friends tried to be inclusive of each other's different holidays.
Herschel Balter on Cultural Actions in Auschwitz
Language: English
Herschel describes sitting in his camp barracks in Auschwitz-Birkenau and the cultural actions taken by the men imprisoned with him in the death camp.
Marion Blumenthal Lazan on an American Classroom
Language: English
100 Days to Inspire Respect
Marion describes being welcomed into an ethnically diverse American classroom.
Norbert Bikales on Being Excluded from School
Language: English
100 Days to Inspire Respect
Norbert remembers the day he was excluded from attending a non-Jewish German school in Berlin, Germany, shortly after Kristallnacht.
Anthony Marreco on Military Malpractices in Paraguay
Language: English
100 Days to Inspire Respect
Anthony reflects on a trip he took with Amnesty International, in which he examined the malpractices of a general in Paraguay.
Rosalina Tuyuc Velasquez on Women's Collectives
Language: English
100 Days to Inspire Respect
Rosalina was a cooperative activist (activista cooperatista) in Guatemala. She joined women’s collectives and worked weaving textiles and raising rabbits. The women were enthusiastic about life and dedicated to economic growth.
Elena Nightingale on Becoming a Human Rights Activist
Language: English
100 Days to Inspire Respect
Elena explains how her experience being caught between two cultures inspired her to become a human rights activist.
Language: English
100 Days to Inspire Respect
Tom Lantos is the only Jewish survivor of the Holocaust who went on to become a US Congressman. He shares his views on values and citizen responsibility in a democracy.
Simone Maria Liebster on Standing Up for Herself
Language: English
100 Days to Inspire Respect
Simone Maria Liebster survived religious persecution as a Jehovah's Witness during WWII under the Nazi regime. She describes how she stood up for her beliefs despite intense opposition.
Phansy Peang on Losing Her Family to Genocide
Language: English
100 Days to Inspire Respect
Phansy details how she was affected by losing both her parents and children during the Cambodian Genocide.
Katsugo Miho on Japanese Internment
Language: English
100 Days to Inspire Respect
Katsugo, a soldier in the American army during World War II, recalls his experience of visiting a Japanese relocation camp in Arkansas, United States.
Elizabeth Holtzman on Deciding to Fight for Civil Rights
Language: English
100 Days to Inspire Respect
Elizabeth remembers the challenging decision she had to make upon arriving in the American South to aid the Civil Rights Movement.
Hersch Altman on Learning From the Past
Language: English
100 Days to Inspire Respect
Hersch Altman, who survived the Holocaust, says that we need to learn from the past so that we can avoid repeating it. In learning about his story, he hopes that students can avoid racism and bigotry in the future and help avoid events like the Holocaust.
Jack Robbins on the Nazis' Racist Ideology
Language: English
100 Days to Inspire Respect
Jack, who aided the war crimes prosecution of Nazi physician Karl Brandt, reflects on the origins of the Nazis' racist pseudoscience.
Leon Bass on Racism
Language: English
100 Days to Inspire Respect
American World War II veteran and Buchenwald liberator Leon Bass shares some of his experiences with racism after he returned home from war.
Elise Taft on Telling Her Story
Language: English
100 Days to Inspire Respect
Armenian Genocide survivor Elise Taft reads from the preface of her book about why she decided to tell her story.
Wellesina McCrary on Racism in California
Language: English
100 Days to Inspire Respect
Wellesina discusses being targeted by the Ku Klux Klan while living with her black adopted daughter in Rialto, California.
Paula Isenberg on Antisemitism in the United States
Language: English
100 Days to Inspire Respect
Paula, who was born in America, remembers her first encounter with antisemitism.
Victor Borge on Hate on the Stage
Language: English
100 Days to Inspire Respect
Victor Borge, an actor in Denmark in 1939, talks about experiencing hate at the hands of Nazis and the press. He shares how he was threatened with violence and described as repulsive.
Floyd Dade on Hate
Language: English
100 Days to Inspire Respect
Floyd reflects on how his experiences as a Holocaust liberator shaped his views on hate.
Peter Prager on Othering
Language: English
100 Days to Inspire Respect
In this clip Holocaust survivor Peter Prager describes an example of how he and his Jewish classmates were made to feel inferior, or less than his non-Jewish classmates.
Freddy Mutanguha on Hate
Language: English
100 Days to Inspire Respect
Rwandan Tutsi Genocide survivor Freddy Mutanguha describes the hate Tutsi children experienced at his school at the hands of fellow students - both verbal taunts and physical attacks.
Ursula Rosenfeld on Xenophobia
Language: English
100 Days to Inspire Respect
Ursula describes an incident at a hospital social function that was typical of the xenophobia she experienced as a refugee in the UK.
Alicia Appleman-Jurman on courage
Language: English
100 Days to Inspire Respect
Alicia describes when her house was attacked. She recognizes one of the attackers, and she makes a speech to him that causes him to leave.
Margaret Lambert on Hate
Language: English
100 Days to Inspire Respect
Margaret Lambert describes how she experienced hate as a consequence of stories that turned people against Jews and broke human connections.
What is Hate?
Language: English
100 Days to Inspire Respect
Researchers have studied hate in order to deepen their understanding of how people develop the emotions and actions associated with hate. Learn more about their findings by watching the video, "What is Hate?"
Language: English
100 Days to Inspire Respect
Ruth — whose son, a journalist, was executed by terrorists in 2002 — explains how critical thinking and respect for common humanity can save lives.
Sara Pol-Lim on Being Ostracized
Language: English
100 Days to Inspire Respect
Sara discusses how she was labeled and ostracized because of where she was raised.
Ursula Rosenfeld on Antisemitism
Language: English
100 Days to Inspire Respect
Ursula describes her first experience with antisemitism: her birthday party, when none of her friends showed up because of Ursula's faith.
Guixiang Chen on Being Orphaned
Language: English
100 Days to Inspire Respect
Guixiang explains that as an orphan in the Nanjing Massacre, it was much harder to find a foster family as a girl than as a boy.
Saba Wainapel on a Woman's Place
Language: English
100 Days to Inspire Respect
Saba discusses the role and expectations of women in the Orthodox Jewish community.
Gizel Berman on Sexual Violence
Language: English
100 Days to Inspire Respect
Gizel describes how she avoided being raped by her Russian liberators.
Renee Firestone: What is Testimony?
Language: English
100 Days to Inspire Respect
Renee Firestone is a Holocaust survivor who was interviewed by USC Shoah Foundation and went on to become an interviewer herself. She discusses the interviewing process and describes how listening to testimony is an emotional experience.
Alice Resseguie on Feminism
Language: English
100 Days to Inspire Respect
Alice explains how feminism has positively impacted her life.
Daniel Goldsmith on His Gender
Language: English
100 Days to Inspire Respect
Daniel recounts how his male gender led to his Jewish identity being exposed by Nazis while he pretended to be an altar boy at a Catholic orphanage in Belgium.
Elizabeth Holtzman on Protesting Police Brutality
Language: English
100 Days to Inspire Respect
Elizabeth recalls a peaceful protest in a nearby town that turned violent, giving her the opportunity to protest against police brutality in Washington.
Theary Seng on being a Cambodian Genocide refugee
Language: English
Theary recounts a debate among her family about where to travel next as refugees of the Cambodian Genocide.
Benjamin Lesser on Boyle Heights, Los Angeles
Language: English
100 Days to Inspire Respect
Benjamin Lesser speaks about how his family found a Jewish community in the Boyle Heights neighborhood of Los Angeles.
Jacques Kayaloff on Armenian Refugees
Language: English
100 Days to Inspire Respect
Jacques, a witness to the Armenian Genocide, discusses Armenian refugees, including the famous Armenian-American painter Arshile Gorky.
Paul Freud on Fleeing to Czechoslovakia
Language: English
100 Days to Inspire Respect
Paul describes how he fled German-occupied Austria for Czechoslovakia. He didn't have a visa and was quickly discovered and forced to leave the country.
Tama Fineberg on Learning English
Language: English
100 Days to Inspire Respect
Tama describes how she learned English in school after immigrating to the United States.
Theoneste Karenzi on the Killing of Tutsi Refugees
Language: English
100 Days to Inspire Respect
Theoneste Karenzi recalls his encounter with a family of other Tutsi refugees.
Sir Nicholas Winton on his decision to save over 600 children
Language: English
100 Days to Inspire Respect
Sir Nicholas Winton, responsible for organizing the Kindertransport that saved the lives of 669 Jewish children, passed away at the age of 106. Here is his message to the future.
Aniela Ania Radek Sings a Polish Song
Language: English
100 Days to Inspire Respect
Aniela recalls singing with her family and performs a melancholy Polish song she remembers from that time.
Rose Apelian on Religious Identity
Language: English
100 Days to Inspire Respect
Rose explains how a woman at a hospital recognized that Rose was Armenian.
Henry Levy on Diversity
Language: English
100 Days to Inspire Respect
Henry, who is Jewish, describes how he and his Greek Orthodox friend learned about each other's culture - and how his friend reacted when the Nazis arrived in Greece.
Freddy Mutanguha on Rwandan Culture
Language: English
100 Days to Inspire Respect
Freddy describes the cultural activities he and other children would do to keep themselves busy during their vacations.
Ezechiel Ndamage on Religious Unity
Language: English
100 Days to Inspire Respect
Ezechiel explains how his Christian teachings inspired a small group of Tutsis and Hutus to coexist.
Clem Mimun on Diversity
Language: English
100 Days to Inspire Respect
Clem describes his friendships from growing up in Libya.
Julia Lentini on Family Livelihood
Language: English
100 Days to Inspire Respect
Julia remembers her family's prewar life as nomadic Roma in Germany.
Lilit Pohlmann on Courage
Language: English
100 Days to Inspire Respect
After escaping the ghetto in Lwów, Poland in the early 1940s, Lilit—at the time barely even a teenager—encountered a dangerous militiamen who recognized her. She was saved only by her own quick thinking.
David Faber and Sidney Finkel on Violence Against Jews
Language: English
100 Days to Inspire Respect
David and Sidney are Jewish and were born in Poland. They describe the prejudice and violence they experienced during the 1930s in Poland.
Rita Kuhn on the Rosenstrasse Demonstrations
Language: English
100 Days to Inspire Respect
Rita Kuhn shares her personal memory of the Rosenstrasse Demonstrations.
Connections Video: Refugees
Language: English
This video introduces students to the definition of "refugee" and the experiences of refugees of the 20th century to today.
Ludmila Page and Frieda Stieglitz on Spontaneous Prayer
Language: English
100 Days to Inspire Respect
Ludmila Page and Frieda Stieglitz describe instances in which spontaneous prayers sprung from moments of crisis in the Holocaust.
Xiulan Guo on Courage During Adversity
Language: English
100 Days to Inspire Respect
Xiulan describes the night her parents were killed during the Nanjing Massacre. Her grandfather saved her and several others.
Sonia Bielski on Sexual Violence
Language: English
100 Days to Inspire Respect
Sonia Bielski describes how the man who helped her escape from the ghetto touched her inappropriately one night.
Reidar Dittman on Returning to Norway
Language: English
100 Days to Inspire Respect
Reidar discusses his experience returning to Norway after being interned as a political prisoner during World War II.
Julienne Umugwaneza on Being Rejected by Her Family
Language: English
100 Days to Inspire Respect
Julienne, a Rwandan Tutsi survivor, tried to seek shelter in her uncle's home during the genocide, but he threw her out of the house out of fear that she would be discovered and they would both be killed.
What is the Guatemalan Genocide?
Language: English
100 Days to Inspire Respect
This Connections Video provides a brief overview of the Guatemalan Genocide for students.
Gaoshan Li on Being Captured by Japanese Soldiers
Language: English
100 Days to Inspire Respect
Gaoshan Li describes the horrors that followed his capture by Japanese soldiers while in hiding.
Kitty Hart-Moxon on Indifference
Language: English
100 Days to Inspire Respect
Kitty reflects on a comment made by her uncle, with whom she stayed in London after she survived Auschwitz.
Edith Reiss on Indifference
Language: English
100 Days to Inspire Respect
Edith, a Holocaust rescuer, describes witnessing an elderly man being beaten in the street. When she tried to help him, someone else warned her not to get involved.
Romeo Dallaire on the United Nations' Response to Genocide
Language: English
100 Days to Inspire Respect
Roméo discusses a dispute in the United Nations with American diplomats about how to respond to the burgeoning Genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda.
Gerda Frieberg on Remembering the Holocaust
Language: English
100 Days to Inspire Respect
Gerda recalls being told to "get over" her experiences in the Holocaust, and explains how that made her feel.
Helen Colin on the Liberation of Bergen-Belsen
Language: English
Helen remembers being liberated from Bergen Belsen on April 15, 1945 - her 21st birthday.
Elise Taft on the Great Fire of Smyrna
Language: English
100 Days to Inspire Respect
Armenian Genocide survivor Elise Taft describes her experience during the Great Fire of Smyrna in 1922.
Leo Bach on Preventing Genocide
Language: English
Leo discusses other genocides and reflects on human responsibility in preventing them.
Genaro Guanché Lajuj on Resilience
Language: English
100 Days to Inspire Respect
Genaro explains how his resilience has made it possible for his six children to live good lives.
Israel Dubner on His Brother
Language: English
100 Days to Inspire Respect
Israel shows photos and shares memories of his brother Yulek.
Marcel Rutagarama on Survival
Language: English
100 Days to Inspire Respect
Marcel Rutagarama recounts his travails unearthing and eating unpeeled cassava with his teeth after losing use of his arms.
Samuel Kadorian on Nightmares
Language: English
100 Days ot Inspire Respect
Armenian Genocide survivor Samuel Kadorian talks about the nightmares he used to have regularly about the horrors he witnessed during the genocide.
Genocide: Aurora Mardiganian on the Armenian Genocide
Language: English
Aurora Mardiganian speaks here as a survivor of the Armenian Genocide. But from 1918-1920, she was also the face of the Genocide to literally millions of Americans and to others throughout the world. Her tragic, horrific story was told through a 1918 semi-autobiographical book, Ravished Armenia, and a 1919 screen adaptation, also known as Auction of Souls. With the immediacy of a newsreel, the human side to the Genocide was brought to the screen. Working with Near East Relief and with the support of the wealthiest and the most prominent members of New York society, Aurora and her film helped raise some $117 million (the equivalent of $2 billion today) for the relief of Armenian suffering.
Rose Burizihiza on Sexual Violence
Language: English
100 Days to Inspire Respect
Rose remembers sexual violence that she suffered and witnessed during the Genocide against the Tutsi.
Stephen Smith on the testimony of Armin Wegner
Language: English
100 Days to Inspire Respect
In every genocide, in spite of the horror of human killing and the danger that poses, there are remarkable people that come to the fore. Armin T. Wegner was in the German Sanitary Corps and was posted to Eastern Turkey during WWI. There he was witness to the genocide of the Armenian people. Seeing the devastating consequences of the deportations he documented the genocide in photographs, keeping meticulous notes at great personal risk.
Wegner was arrested for his covert documentation, but was able to smuggle his photographs back to Germany. These photographs were later used in German Court as evidence that genocide had indeed taken place in Eastern Anatolia against the Armenian people.
Wegner became a tireless advocate for human rights and was one of the first, and only, German citizens to be outspoken against the Nazi persecution of the Jews as early as April 1933, when he wrote an open letter to Adolf Hitler. He spent time in seven concentration camps for his outspoken opposition to the Nazis. He was awarded Righteous Among the Nations by Yad Vashem in 1967.
Armin T. Wegner continued his work advocating for the Armenian people until his death. A friend of J Michael Hagopian, he encouraged Hagopian to use his art as a documentary film maker to ensure the witnesses of the Armenian Genocide were documented on film. The interview recorded in 1967 with Armin T. Wegner, was one of the first that Hagopian collected and documents one of the twentieth century’s greatest advocates for genocide prevention. Wegner demonstrated that it was possible to be an ordinary citizen and at the same time be an effective voice for the benefit of humanity.
Armin T. Wegner has been my role model for much of my career. It is an honor to be able to introduce this clip, which places his voice in the public domain for the very first time, Exactly 100 years after he began his life's work as a witness to genocide.
Author: Stephen Smith, Andrew J. and Erna Finci Viterbi Executive Director at USC Shoah Foundation.
A Closer Look: 100 Days to Inspire Respect
Language: English
USC Shoah Foundation Senior Director of Programs and Operations Kori Street discusses "100 Days to Inspire Respect," a new education program from the Institute.
Doba Apelowicz Recites a Poem in Yiddish
Language: English
100 Days to Inspire Respect
Doba Apelowicz reads a poem she wrote in Yiddish about Goldela, a young woman she knew in Birkenau.
Philip Bialowitz on the Izbica Pogrom
Language: English
100 Days to Inspire Respect
When Philip was 12, he and his family constructed a hiding place to avoid Nazi capture in their hometown of Izbica, Poland. One day, Philip left to gather water for his ailing mother—only to discover a genocide massacre, or "pogrom," was taking place in Izbica.
Eva Slonim on Saving Lives
Language: English
100 Days to Inspire Respect
Eva explains how quick thinking and determination made it possible for her and her father to save many lives.
Krikor Guergeurian on Meeting a Perpetrator
Language: English
100 Days to Inspire Respect
Krikor Guerguerian discusses his experience encountering a perpetrator of the Armenian Genocide many years after the end of the genocide.
Combating the Bystander Effect
Language: English
100 Days to Inspire Respect
Listen to several stories of what took place in the aftermath of the February 2015 attack on the Copenhagen synagogue that was motivated by antisemitism.
Sulia Rubin on Leadership
Language: English
100 Days to Inspire Respect
Sulia describes Tuvia Bielski, the oldest brother and leader of the partisans, and the leadership qualities he possessed.
Kitty Fischer on her rescue by a gay male prisoner
Language: English
100 Days to Inspire Respect
Kitty Fischer recounts her time in Auschwitz-II Birkenau when as a young girl she encounters for the first time a gay male prisoner who will turn out to save her life.
Vahram Papazyan on Competing in the 1912 Olympics
Language: English
In 1912, only two athletes from the Ottoman Empire went to compete in the Olympics - both were Armenian. Vahram Papazyan was one of them. During his testimony, he recalls fainting in the middle of his race because of anxiety over what he would do and what could happen if he won. During the 1912 Stockholm Olympics the Finnish team, who had participated since 1908 under the Russian flag, refused to march under the Russian flag and was allowed to do so. That nationalistic incident by the Finns was the context in which Papazyan feared that a similar incident would occur to himself in case he kept his lead and won. He was worried about the Olympic audience and participants calling for the Ottoman flag to be put down and what repercussions that potential act would have for Armenians back in the Ottoman Empire. The official reports of the 1912 games states that 'Papazian' never finished the race.
Transcript:
75 miles [yards] to finish half mile and I was 10-12 yards ahead of the second an American, Holden. I remembered what he did in javelin throwing. Finland 1st, 2nd, 3rd [were] Finns. Those hoisted [the] Russian flag because at that time Finland was under the Russian yoke. So, Jim Thorpe was the first among the American, there were 5 or 6 Americans athletes, there and Jim jumped and started shouting: “Down with the Russian Flag!” And all the people “Down with the Russian Flag!” but Jim Thorpe started [it]. He was internationalist so they took down the Russian flag, they hoisted the Russian and Finnish flag. So when I was sure that I was going to win, I thought of what will happen in my case, because he knew my case. I was also under the yoke of a foreign country. If they shouted for raising the Armenian flag, there could be another massacre in Armenia. So that thought, emotionally broke me down, I couldn’t hold on my knees. 10 yards ahead, 75 yards to finish. Everybody was amazed. They cheered me more than one minute, the Turkish, but I was afraid of the end.
Hagopian- “You were afraid of winning?”
Yes, because I was going to ask an Armenian flag, I didn’t know if there was an Armenian flag or no and 2nd if I knew, I would never ask them instead for Turkish flag, because it was very good for my people in Armenia.
[Armenian]Hagopian- “Who wanted you to raise the Armenian flag, the Armenians?”
Because for Finland, they didn’t want the Russian Federation flag, they protested and were successful, therefore they’re going to have me raise the Turkish flag and make put down the Turkish flag. An Armenian is going representing Turkey and asking to put down the Turkish flag, you know what that means? Considering Adana [1909 massacres],… I didn’t want anything like that to happen; I went as a citizen of Turkey, so the flag was going to be Turkey’s.
[English] I am citizen of Turkey, under the yoke or not. If Jim Thorpe, in simple it was in our case, [if] he shouted in front of 50-60 million people, “down with the Turkish flag,” it would be the end of me and my people at home. An international demonstration against the country of which I am a citizen.
Vera Laska on Participating in the Czech Resistance Movement
Language: English
Vera Laska describes how, as a teenager, she helped Jews and French political prisoners cross the mountains from Slovakia into Hungary. This clip is part of the new Facing History and Ourselves IWitness activity Choosing to Rescue.