Vicki Kessler’s students watch testimonies in IWitness to practice their French, and to enhance their study of the Holocaust and genocide.

I expected to feel an intimate and profound connection to Auschwitz after touring the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum for the first time late last month. After three consecutive days visiting and working at the museum, I was indeed moved. But the insight I was hoping for came from beyond the well-worn paths of tourists, from a source that hits close to home here at USC Shoah Foundation.

Kurt Messerschmidt is one of the most recognizable faces on IWitness, and his Information Quest allows students to learn more about his life and how he survived the Holocaust.

Shortly after triggering World War II with its 1939 invasion of Poland, Nazi Germany set about repurposing a system of immigrant barracks in the city of Oświęcim to house political prisoners. Renamed Auschwitz, the facility would become the most notorious killing factory in human history. Tracing this tragic trajectory is the 15-minute documentary “Auschwitz.”

Kurt Messerschmidt describes the aftermath and fear after the Kristallnacht Pogrom - an organized pogrom against Jews in Germany and Austria that occurred on November 9–10, 1938. Kristallnacht is also known as the November Pogrom, "Night of Broken Glass," and "Crystal Night." This testimony clip is featured in the IWitness activity, Information Quest: Kurt Messerschmidt.