Dr. Ruth’s journey: from “Holocaust orphan” to worldwide fame

By: Rob Kuznia

In the 1980s, a tiny woman in her 50s named Ruth Westheimer shocked and delighted the world with her blunt advice – delivered in a grandmotherly German accent – about sex. She became a media sensation and remains a household name as “Dr. Ruth.”

Less known is her perilous journey to get there – a story that includes her survival of the Holocaust and immigration to British-controlled Mandatory Palestine, where she briefly became a sniper in a Jewish paramilitary force.

Rob Kuznia

Center for Advanced Genocide Research Awards 2019 Beth and Arthur Lev Student Research Fellowship to Anna Lee

By: USC Shoah Foundation

Anna Lee, a junior at USC from Los Angeles, California majoring in English Literature with minors in Spanish and Teaching English as a Second language (TESOL), has been chosen as the 2019 Beth and Arthur Lev Student Research Fellow at the USC Shoah Foundation Center for Advanced Genocide Research.

USC Shoah Foundation

Holocaust survivors tell their stories on location at concentration camps for 360-degree videos

By: Rob Kuznia

Max Glauben was 13 when his family’s apartment was destroyed in the historic battle of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising.

Eva Kuper was 2 when her mother’s cousin rescued her from a train in the frantic moments before it headed to the Treblinka death camp.

Both lost parents and other relatives in the Holocaust. And both are among the four Holocaust survivors whose testimonies USC Shoah Foundation is recording this week using cutting-edge, 360-degree filming techniques at the physical locations of their pre-war and wartime experiences, as well as their places of liberation.

Rob Kuznia

“Missing Links: Social Bonds and Barriers amongst Italian Jewish Deportees” by Bieke Van Camp (PhD candidate, Université Paul-Valéry Montpellier, France), 2018-2019 Robert J. Katz Research Fellow in Genocide Studies, April 23, 2019 (lecture summary)

Bieke Van Camp, the 2018-2019 Robert J.

“Afterlives: Memories of the Displaced Persons Camps in Italy” by Danielle Willard-Kyle (PhD candidate, Rutgers University, History), 2018-2019 Center Graduate Research Fellow, April 16, 2019 (lecture summary)

Danielle Willard-Kyle, the 2018-2019 Center Graduate Research fellow, gave a public lecture about her month-long research at the USC Shoah Foundation Center for Advanced Genocide Research focusing on the testimonies of Jewish survivors who went through Italian Displaced Persons camps after World War II

“Did Gender Matter During the Holocaust?” by Marion Kaplan (Skirball Professor of Modern Jewish History, New York University), 2018-2019 Sara and Asa Shapiro Scholar in Residence, April 11, 2019 (lecture summary)

Professor Marion Kaplan, 2018-2019 Sara and Asa Shapiro Scholar in Residence at the USC Shoah Foundation Center for Advanced Genocide Research, gave the annual Shapiro Scholar public lecture on gender and the Holocaust.

“In Search of the Drowned in the Words of the Saved: Testimonial Fragments of the Holocaust” by Gabor Toth, PhD (University of Oxford) 2018-2019 Center Postdoctoral Research Fellow, April 2, 2019 (lecture summary)

Gabor Toth, 2018-2019 Center Postdoctoral Research Fellow, gave a public lecture at the USC Shoah Foundation Center for Advanced Genocide Research focusing on his project to find, represent, and reflect on victims’ experiences during the Holocaust. 

“The Last Survivors,” airing on PBS, is the stronger of the two, a sparely told Frontline presentation in which not just survivors but family members discuss the ordeal as well as how it affected them in the years after. Later in the week, there’s “Liberation Heroes: The Last Eyewitnesses,” a Discovery Channel hour made in conjunction with the Shoah Foundation.

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