Judy LaPietra was one of the first to learn about USC Shoah Foundation’s new educational website, IWitness, and from then on she has remained one of its most avid users.

LaPietra teaches eighth grade history at St. Mark Catholic School in Huntersville, NC, and also created and teaches three courses in the global studies department at the University of North Carolina, Charlotte: “The Legacy of the Holocaust,” “Bearing Witness to the Past:  A Journey to Auschwitz” and “Representations of the Holocaust.” She has even taken her college students on trips to Poland to visit Auschwitz.

She first heard about the then-upcoming IWitness website in 2007 at an Echoes and Reflections professional development program in Jerusalem, and was immediately excited about the prospect of having access to testimony in her classroom.

“Before it was ever a reality, I imagined the far-reaching effects such an opportunity could have on students,” LaPietra said.

LaPietra said IWitness provides students with an opportunity to collaborate with other students, and to direct their own learning. They are able to engage with technology in an intuitive way, and in doing so, connect with the individual face of history. She uses testimony to help her students focus on important themes or events in the Holocaust and combines the use of testimony with other sources such as texts and fictional works on the Holocaust. Her classes have also conducted comparative analysis on specific topics in the Visual History Archive. 

LaPietra’s classes have also completed the IWitness Video Challenge, in which students construct a video in IWitness about how they were inspired by testimony to create positive change in their communities.

“The products of their efforts exceeded my expectations and went on to inspire a community,” LaPietra said.

LaPietra believes a successful Holocaust lesson is one that allows students to make a personal connection to the material and be transformed in some way. She has seen testimony produce an “aha” moment in her students, such as during her lesson on the Final Solution, in which Nathan Offen’s testimony tends to have a strong, emotional impact on them. Through testimony like his, students can understand the human side to the Holocaust and be inspired to act, she added.

“I know of no other historical resource which has the potential impact which IWitness has,” LaPietra said. “Not only do students learn about the history presented in the narratives, but they can then create projects which ultimately empower them.”