Next Generation Council member Thomas Melcher is a longstanding supporter of USC Shoah Foundation. His work to foster tolerance was reaffirmed by the terrorist attacks in Paris on November 13, 2015, when 130 people were murdered with hundreds more wounded. “I fear that the regularity of these events is slowly desensitizing us all,” he says.

Juliane Heyman’s story of escaping the Holocaust is as harrowing as the rest of her life has been inspirational. At age 12, she and her family were forced to flee their home in what is now Gdansk, Poland. In a scene that could have inspired The Sound of Music, she first had to perform in a violin recital so as not to raise suspicion.

The testimonies of Leon’s late parents, Sima and Rubin, in the Visual History Archive attest to the power of love and never giving up. Married before the war, the couple was torn apart when the Nazis sent them to separate camps. Miraculously, Rubin somehow kept his ring and, after the war, convinced an officer to take it to the nearby women’s camp, in the hope that Sima was alive and would recognize it. The couple soon reunited.

Melinda Goldrich had long known about USC Shoah Foundation’s dedication to collecting eyewitness experiences — her father, Jona, gave testimony. But it was not until early in 2015 that she learned the full range of the Institute’s educational outreach. Traveling to Poland as part of the Auschwitz: The Past is Present program inspired the Aspen, Colo., resident to visit the Institute to find out more about such programs as IWitness and New Dimensions in Testimony.

To honor his parents — now age 93 and 85 — Shapiro endowed the Sara and Asa Shapiro Annual Holocaust Testimony Scholar and Lecture Fund. The program it supports enables scholars to spend up to a month in residence at USC Shoah Foundation’s Center for Advanced Genocide Research. Each fellowship culminates in a public lecture.

As the 21st century began, and time threatened to still the voices of many witnesses, Joseph “Yossie” Hollander became concerned about the state of education on the Holocaust. “It was almost frozen,” says Hollander, an Israeli technology entrepreneur whose parents survived the Holocaust. “At some point, we will not have the capability to teach with actual Holocaust survivors.”

The child of Holocaust survivors, George Schaeffer has supported USC Shoah Foundation’s mission since he first heard about it. His parents met after the Soviets liberated Ravensbrück, the Nazis’ largest concentration camp for women. His father had been sent there as a laborer. The couple married in 1945, the same year they were freed.

The couple is particularly excited about the New Dimensions in Testimony project, which allows testimonies to be shared through interactive interviews that facilitate engagement with survivors. “Having seen a demonstration and having learned how new technology enables real-time interaction with a Holocaust survivor is extremely powerful,” says Kathy. “The authenticity of that exchange leaves an indelible impression.”