Since Barbara Jaffe first learned about the USC Shoah Foundation 10 years ago, she has participated in its Master Teacher professional development program, created her own IWitness activities, and has seen her students become just as affected by Holocaust survivor testimony as she is.

Jaffe teaches freshman composition, critical thinking and argumentation (which includes study of the Rwandan Tutsi Genocide), basic writing and Holocaust literature at El Camino College in Torrance, Calif. She has been a docent at the Museum of Tolerance in Los Angeles for 12 and half years and has taught the Holocaust in her freshman composition courses for over 20 years.

She first learned of the USC Shoah Foundation while attending the annual Chapman University Holocaust art and writing contest, and also during her scholarship to study at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in 2004. She was accepted to the USC Shoah Foundation’s Master Teacher program, which taught her how to search the Visual History Archive and use IWitness to teach with testimony.

Since then, Jaffe created four lessons in IWitness: Everyday Choices, Lasting Effects (now as a permanent lesson plan on IWitness that uses four survivor testimonies); Independence through Survival (Engelina Billaurer's testimony); The Importance of Memory (Aaron Elster's testimony); and Man's Inhumanity to Man (Renee Firestone's testimony).  In addition, she requires her students to use testimony from IWitness in their research papers.

Jaffe said her students are so moved by testimony, beyond what she anticipated as a result of using IWitness.  She realized that the testimonies give her students a similar experience to hearing a Holocaust survivor speak in person – something completely new to them, as many of them know little or nothing about the Holocaust.

“My students have told me that they became mesmerized and captivated by the testimonies to the point that time got away from them and they would call their family members who were home to come sit around the computer and watch the testimonies,” Jaffe said. “It is because of their reactions that I have incorporated IWitness into my curriculum.  I knew it was amazing, but the students feel the same.”

She is also pleased to see students branch out from the activities she assigns and search for additional testimonies on their own. She’s also excited to use the Rwandan testimonies that were recently added to IWitness.

Jaffe said she is grateful for IWitness and the survivors who share their devastating experiences so that students can learn from them.

“We can study information from books and even watch movies, but when there is a student sitting in front of the computer watching and listening to a survivor, it is as if the student and the survivor are engaged in a very intimate conversation, one the students do not forget,” she said.