In 2018, USC Shoah Foundation launched an Initiative to address requests from survivors who, for complex and often very personal reasons, could not come forward in the 1990s. Since the start of COVID, the foundation has received more than 400 requests from survivors to record their testimonies. We believe there are thousands more who want to tell their stories. 

In September 2022, the Institute launched its inaugural Scholar Lab Event Series that included three events that focused on the research conducted by the members of the Scholar Lab on Antisemitism. The first event featured professors Todd Presner (UCLA) and Josh Kun (USC), who discussed their projects on survivor narratives about antisemitism and antisemitism in music. The second event introduced the work of professors Jeffrey Veidlinger (University of Michigan) and Jonathan Judaken (Rhodes College), who explored the writings about antisemitism by major writers and theorists.

The Scholar Lab on Antisemitism gathers six scholars from different academic backgrounds, including history, digital humanities, communication, musicology, religious studies, Judaic studies, Holocaust studies, and media studies, who all examine the topic of antisemitism from their respective disciplinary and methodological perspectives. You can learn more about the scholars and their projects below.

Featured project: "The Blue Angel and the Holocaust"                   Inayat looked at him intently and said, "What do you know of pain?" And he responded simply, "I know no one has a monopoly on it."

In 2018, USC Shoah Foundation launched an initiative to address requests from survivors who, for complex and often very personal reasons, could not come forward in the 1990s. Since the start of COVID, the foundation has received more than 400 requests from survivors to record their testimonies. We believe there are thousands more who want to tell their stories. 

In 2018, USC Shoah Foundation launched the Last Chance Testimony Initiative to address requests from survivors who, for complex and often very personal reasons, could not come forward in the 1990s. Since the start of COVID, the foundation has received more than 400 requests from survivors to record their testimonies. We believe there are thousands more who want to tell their stories. The global pandemic has accelerated our race against time. The last chance is upon us.

On the afternoon of January 27, 1945, the Red Army liberated Auschwitz, a complex of concentration and extermination camps. Although most of the prisoners were sent on a death march before the Soviet troops arrived, around 7,000 still remained at Auschwitz. The date of the liberation is recognized by the United Nations as International Holocaust Remembrance Day.

This one-hour documentary explores the journeys of Liberators and Liberation Witnesses drawing parallels between the past and present. These one-of-a-kind stories of World War II heroes serve as a compelling reminder of what is at stake as antisemitism and xenophobia are on the rise again, and as a call to action to stand against hatred in all its forms.

During the month of April, as we observe commemoration days for four genocides, we take the opportunity to raise awareness about all genocides, including those being perpetrated today. April is an opportunity for those committed to history and remembrance to alert others to the moral and physical dangers of denying the past and of ignoring atrocities occurring in our own times. Access events, educational resources, and other opportunities to commemorate the victims of genocide.

With anti-Jewish rhetoric and violence on the rise around the world, the USC Shoah Foundation this fall launches the Daniel and Marisa Klass USC Shoah Foundation Lecture Series, focusing this year on Antisemitism where leading scholars will guide audiences through the latest research and explore a diversity of approaches to understanding and combating the current upsurge.

“Recovering Victims’ Voices,” a lecture series on marginalized victims of the Holocaust, highlights new and emerging scholarship on often un- or underexplored victims of Nazi persecution. The series shows how historical identity-based hate influences contemporary discourse about race, gender, sexuality, and disabilities.

In commemoration of Pride Month, the Institute recognizes the LGBTQ+ people persecuted under the Nazis from as early as 1933 to the end of the war in 1945, some of whose stories are in the Institute’s Visual History Archive.They are stories of survival, resistance, rescue, and heartbreaking loss. Some of the witnesses were targeted by the Nazis for being gay under the German penal code, Paragraph 175. Other witnesses recall their encounters with gay men and women who provided rescue and aid at great risk to their own lives.