Remembering Gerda Weissmann Klein
Above: Gerda Weissmann Klein with her granddaughter Alysa Cooper
USC Shoah Foundation mourns the loss of Holocaust survivor and Institute friend Gerda Weissmann Klein, who passed away on April 3, 2022. She was 97.
USC Shoah Foundation Mourns the Passing of William (“Bill”) Harvey—Holocaust Survivor, Friend and Cosmetologist to the Stars
USC Shoah Foundation mourns the loss of William (“Bill”) Harvey, a friend of the institute who survived two Nazi concentration camps and later became a well-known cosmetologist with a client list that included Judy Garland, Zsa Zsa Gabor, and a young Liza Minnelli. Bill recently passed away in Los Angeles at age 97.
Born on May 20, 1924, in Berehovo, Czechoslovakia (now Ukraine), Bill was the youngest of two boys and four girls. His father, Aron, a veteran of World War I, was a winemaker, and his mother Zali was a dressmaker.
The foundation’s move to the blockchain is in partnership with Starling Lab, a nonprofit academic research center that’s on a mission to use decentralized ledgers to help preserve historical data of importance to humanity. Its lofty goal is to restore integrity both to data and to the internet itself—starting with some of the most precious information we have.
First Willesden Project Fellow Developing Virtual IWalks Related to Refugee Experiences
How best to fuse compelling testimony with the latest innovative technologies to produce the most effective instructional materials for students and educators around the world?
Remembering Vera Gissing
USC Shoah Foundation mourns the passing of our friend Vera Gissing, who died March 12 in Berkshire, England at age 93. Vera will be remembered for her extraordinary life, which included escaping Prague in 1939 on one of the last Kindertransport trains to make it out of Czechoslovakia before the outbreak of World War II.
Last Chance Testimony Collection: A Return to In-Person Interviews Planned for Spring
USC Shoah Foundation continues to record interviews with Holocaust survivors as part of the Last Chance Testimony Collection initiative, an urgent effort to give voice to survivors and witnesses of the Holocaust with the goal of educating people around the globe.
Info Session for USC’s New MA in Global Security Studies Program
Learn how you can be part of the inaugural cohort of USC’s new MA in Global Security Studies Program, starting in Fall 2022. Meet with leading international relations, global security and geospatial science faculty experts as they discuss the curriculum and opportunities for multi-faceted individuals to develop and implement creative and effective policies that address complex challenges such as environmental vulnerability, public health crises, food and resource scarcity, regional conflict, cyber-attacks and other natural and manmade causes of human insecurity.
Willesden READS Education Event Coming to New England
Join acclaimed pianist and author Mona Golabek for a 50-minute livestreamed performance adapted from her best-selling book, The Children of Willesden Lane.
This special theatrical and musical Willesden READS event gives New England students and educators the opportunity to interact with Mona as she brings to life the inspiring story of her mother, Lisa Jura, a young Holocaust survivor who in 1938 escaped from Vienna to London on the Kindertransport.
More than one million students around the world have experienced the Willesden READS program to date.
New Partnership Brings Survivor Voices to Hearts and Homes
Alan Rose was repeating himself. He was stuck in a particularly difficult part of his story about being deported from a labor camp to Buchenwald Concentration Camp. Josh Turnil and the guests he had invited to hear Alan’s story in Josh’s Paris living room that January 2019 evening – about 20 people of all ages tucked into sofas and folding chairs – gently helped Alan along. After Alan had finished speaking, Josh’s teenage son sat at the piano and played a slow, jazzy melody with a repeating refrain that reflected the circularity of memory.
