Two years ago, on October 7, 2023, the world watched in horror as Hamas carried out a deadly series of terror attacks across southern Israel. We were privileged to record the testimonies of more than 400 survivors of these attacks. Their experiences and the world’s responses to them demonstrated how antisemitism persists through the present day.
May these survivors and everyone impacted by such senseless violence know peace in our time.
USC Shoah Foundation mourns the loss of Holocaust survivor and beloved friend of the Institute Paula Lebovics. She was 92 years old.
Lebovics was one of the 12 children standing behind the barbed wire of Auschwitz in a famous photo taken by the Soviet Army after liberation. By this time in history, Lebovics had experienced a ghetto, concentration camp, death camp and the permanent separation of her family – and she was only 12 years old.
We remember Ben Lesser, Holocaust survivor and dedicated advocate for Holocaust remembrance.
Ben was born in Kraków, Poland, in 1928. Ben and his family were able to avoid the Krakow ghetto by moving to a nearby town, but were eventually forced into the Bochnia ghetto. In 1944, his family was separated and sent to Auschwitz. From there, Ben survived Dörnhau, Buchenwald, and Dachau concentration camps. He and his sister were the only members of his family of seven to survive.
We remember Aron Bell, the last living member of the Bielski partisans, led by his three brothers—one of the most successful rescue operations during the Holocaust.
The Programs Division at the USC Shoah Foundation invites applications for its Non-Residential Fellowships for the academic year 2025-2026. This program is open to scholars from any discipline who do not have access to the USC Shoah Foundation archives through their home institutions.
Scholars will be chosen for participation based on the quality of their work and demonstrated need for access to the USC Shoah Foundation’s archive, which currently holds over 59,000 video testimonies of survivors and witnesses of the Holocaust and other genocides and episodes of mass violence.
As a part of our effort to understand and counter the global threat of antisemitism, we are significantly expanding our Contemporary Antisemitism Collection, an unparalleled and comprehensive effort to chronicle antisemitic violence.