Musicians from the University of Southern California (USC) marching band played a spirited musical flourish as shiny streamers wafted down. It was a fitting welcome to the May 6 ceremony recognizing Mickey Shapiro’s transformative $30 million gift to the USC Shoah Foundation. In honor of the gift, the Foundation’s headquarters was named the Mickey Shapiro Headquarters of the USC Shoah Foundation.
I closed my eyes and took a deep breath to be present in the living room of my grandparents’ home, awaiting a conversation with my great-grandmother, Mary Antekelian.
The collaboration will be part of the [USC Shoah Foundation's] Contemporary Antisemitism Collection, and seeks to showcase the various ways antisemitism has manifested since the Holocaust.
By opening our eyes to the crimes of the past, [survivors] create a lens for the future; one that binds us, Jews and non-Jews alike, to this subject and to one another. If we ever hope to truly learn from the Holocaust, we must engage with the history as it happened to those who lived it.
Searching for Never Again from the USC Shoah Foundation, explores the past and present of antisemitism and hate, and how together, we can defeat it.
The USC Shoah Foundation, working with the USC Dornsife Institute of Armenian Studies, a hub of research and learning that studies the contemporary Armenian diaspora and Republic of Armenia at USC, has recently collected three interviews with descendants and scholars of the Armenian Genocide to add to its collection of interactive biographies (Dimensions in Testimony).
The USC Shoah Foundation, the Voces Oral History Center at the University of Texas, the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum and Yad Vashem in Israel are among those that have collected testimonies of survivors and liberators.
Understanding the experiences of survivors and victims builds an understanding of who these individuals were before, during and, for the few, after the Holocaust. Learning their stories can also introduce awareness of how intertwined our fates can be.
Robert J. Williams, the Finci-Viterbi executive director of the USC Shoah Foundation, tells Axios that the commemoration provides a venue for survivors to share their voices and "really tell us the world that they want to create before the last of them leave us."
Dr. Robert Williams, executive director of the USC Shoah Foundation, described the event as more than a traditional memorial. "Unlike reading a book or watching a movie, music has a way to evoke a different set of emotions when you are dealing with complicated subjects," he said.
Legendary director Steven Spielberg sits down with NBC’s Jacob Soboroff on TODAY to share how his Shoah foundation is marking the 30th anniversary of “Schindler’s List” at the Ambassadors for Humanity Gala, honoring Holocaust survivors and bringing attention to atrocities happening around the world.
USC Shoah Foundation celebrated its 30th anniversary this week in New York with performances by Bruce Springsteen and appearances by Meryl Streep and Whoopi Goldberg, as organizers urged attendees to press on against ongoing threats of hate.
Watch the KCAL news interview with the USC Shoah Foundation’s Finci-Viterbi Executive Director Dr. Robert J. Williams.
Dr. Robert Williams, USC Shoah Foundation Finci-Viterbi Executive Director Chair, said of the project, "The translation of our archive into Hebrew marks a significant milestone in our mission to thoroughly document the history of the Holocaust, as well as contemporary antisemitism, and ensure that these crucial survivor experiences are accessible to Hebrew-speaking audiences."
Ahead of the Oct. 4 theatrical release of WWII drama “White Bird,” Lionsgate and Kingdom Story Company have partnered with StoryCorps Studios and the Shoah Foundation to tell real-life stories of Holocaust survivors.
“Hier spricht Anita Lasker, eine deutsche Jüdin,” a voice says, youthful but precise. “This is Anita Lasker speaking, a German Jew.” The recording was made on April 16, 1945, at the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, one day after British troops liberated the site.
Twenty student athletes traveled to Auschwitz, and met with U.S. special envoy Deborah Lipstadt in Washington.
Supported by $300,000 in grants, largely from the Myron and Alayne Meilman Family Foundation, the project is being shaped by technology experts from the USC Shoah Foundation in addition to the USC Libraries.
Debates about terms are a luxury for times of peace. The future of our democracy requires that we understand all forms of antisemitism and emphasize unequivocally that it has no place in America.