Sam Gustman has been chief technology officer (CTO) of the Shoah Foundation since 1994. Gustman is also associate dean and CTO at the USC Libraries where he oversees IT for the Libraries and started the USC Digital Repository.
Tribute to Arnold Spielberg
Sam Gustman, USC Shoah Foundation Chief Technology Officer, reflects on his long friendship with Arnold Spielberg, who passed away August 25 at the age of 103.
Testimonies and the Socioeconomic Aspects of the Armenian Genocide: Reflections from 2019-2020 Junior Postdoctoral Research Fellow Mehmet Polatel
As a postdoctoral research fellow at the USC Shoah Foundation Center for Advanced Genocide Research in the 2019-2020 academic year, I carried out a research project focusing on the long-term impact of Hamidian Massacres of 1894-97 and the experiences of genocide survivors with regards to extortion, plunder, and robbery during the genocide of 1915. Since 2008, I have been working on socio-economic aspects of the genocide and of the deterioration of relations among different communities.
Mehmet Polatel is the 2019-2020 Junior Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the USC Shoah Foundation Center for Advanced Genocide Research. He received his Ph.D. degree from Bogazici University in Istanbul with his dissertation focusing on the emergence and transformation of the Armenian land question in the late Ottoman Empire. Prior to receiving his Ph.D., he earned a BA in International Relations from the University of Middle East Technical University in 2007, and an MA in Comparative Studies in History and Society from Koç University, Istanbul in 2009.
Beyond words: Reflections from 2020 Lev Student Research Fellow Rachel Zaretsky
I had the opportunity to research the USC Shoah Foundation's Visual History Archive this past summer thanks to the Beth and Arthur Lev Student Research Fellowship. I was initially introduced to the archive through a course taught by Dr. Maria Zalewska in the School of Cinematic Arts entitled “Meme, Myself and I: How We Remember in the Digital Age.” Prior to the course, I was unaware of this resource at USC despite having a visual art practice deeply engaged with Holocaust remembrance and archives.
Rachel Zaretsky is the 2020 Beth and Arthur Lev Student Research Fellow at the USC Shoah Foundation Center for Advanced Genocide Research. Ms. Zaretsky just completed the first year of her MFA in Art at the USC Roski School of Art and Design. She earned her BFA in Visual and Critical Studies from The School of Visual Arts (SVA) in New York, and her art practice takes the form of performance, video installation and photography. She has created past artistic responses to the Miami Beach Holocaust memorial and to the Memorial to the Murdered Jews in Berlin.
Survivors of the Holocaust now have the chance to preserve their stories in a way that allows them to directly answer future generations' questions about their experiences.
USC Shoah Foundation, National Historical Museums in Sweden, and the Institution for Jewish Culture in Sweden Begin Filming Socially Distant Swedish-Language Dimensions in Testimony Interviews
USC Shoah Foundation—working with on-site partners National Historical Museums in Sweden and the Institution for Jewish Culture in Sweden—recently began filming two Swedish-language Dimensions in Testimony interviews in Stockholm, Sweden utilizing innovative social distancing and filming techniques.
Institute Announces New Partnership with Ancestry® to Provide Free Access to Searchable Data from Nearly 50,000 Jewish Holocaust Survivor Testimonies
USC Shoah Foundation announced a new partnership with Ancestry® to provide free access to searchable data from nearly 50,000 Jewish Holocaust survivor testimonies that are in the Visual History Archive® (VHA).
“We are grateful that Ancestry is providing access to this initial set of metadata and enhancing the discoverability of our archive and this critically important history,” said Stephen Smith, Finci-Viterbi Executive Director at USC Shoah Foundation.
Here’s how it works:
Voices of Rohingya – Today We Remember
“I saw the military shoot my friend…”