Betty Grebenschikoff and Ana María Wahrenberg were inseparable best friends before the Holocaust. Separated when their families each fled the Nazis, they each believed the other had perished. They were reunited just a few short months ago thanks to a combination of international partnerships, astute research, and the power of survivor testimony.

“Challenging the Shame Paradigm: Jewish Women’s Narratives of Sexual(ized) Violence During the Holocaust” Lauren Cantillon (PhD candidate in the Department of Culture, Media & Creative Industries at King’s College London, UK) 2020-2021 Robert J. Katz Research Fellow in Genocide Studies March 25, 2021

Twenty-one-years after my grandmother recorded her testimony with USC Shoah Foundation, I teamed up with the Institute to create a podcast about my own decade-long journey to retrace her war story. It would be the first-ever narrative podcast to be based around survivor testimony. After years of research, criss-crossing international borders, living in stranger’s homes, and harmonizing history with the politics of today, I began to sit with her voice. “I always felt very guilty,” she told the interviewer about her survival.

In this lecture from April 6, 2021, Florian Zabransky focuses on two sites of genocidal violence: namely ghettos created by the Germans in occupied Poland and the Soviet Union, and partisan warfare. In his research, Florian Zabransky seeks to excavate the particular intimate experience of male Jews and addresses the following questions: How is intimacy narrated in the oral history interviews? How were relationships negotiated in the ghettos and among the partisans? Which social dynamics, traditional gender roles, hierarchies and power relations become evident?

To announce the We Are The Tree of Life performing arts project, we are screening a short video that showcases some of the art created during the Holocaust and features Dr. Edith Eva Eger’s life story as a dancer.

This workshop invites middle and high school educators to learn best practices for teaching film with audiovisual testimony of survivors and witnesses of the Armenian Genocide using multimedia resources across IWitness to contextualize key themes and events addressed in the film The Promise.

In this event, the Center's two student research fellows will discuss the testimony-based research they conducted during Summer 2020. Exploring testimonies from the USC Shoah Foundation Visual History Archive's Nanjing Massacre collection, Lucy Sun (USC undergraduate student, History major, Psychology and Law minor) researched the resistance of women during the Nanjing Massacre.

Cambodian genocide survivor, Theary Seng, reflects on the power of anger and the difference between anger and hate.

Rosalina Tuyuc encourages the youth to value life and act as the protagonists for the future.

USC Shoah Foundation’s Teaching Film with Testimony is a multi-faceted interdisciplinary program that offers educators (K-16) best practices and access to a suite of educational resources for using both film and audiovisual testimony from survivors and witnesses to genocide to support student learning.

In 1985, when Dr. Sharon Aroian-Poiser was a graduate student, she accompanied her grandfather to Washington D.C., to a conference commemorating the 70th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide. Between 1915 and 1918, the Turkish government systematically expelled or massacred an estimated 1.5 million Armenians living in the Ottoman Empire. Aroian-Poiser watched as elderly survivors at the conference rose to tell their stories before microphones and video recorders, many of them for the first time. It was, in fact, the first time that Aroian-Poiser learned that her grandfather was a survivor.

Mihran Andonian is describing an experience that was common during the Armenian Genocide. Some Armenian mothers, certain that they would not survive the death marches into the desert, let their children be taken by Muslims (Turks, Arabs, Kurds), hoping to guarantee survival. Other Armenian mothers on the caravans died while still with their children leaving these orphans to fend for themselves. Indeed, thousands of Armenian children were left homeless by the end of World War I and were either taken in by locals or rounded up by missionaries and brought to orphanages.

‘Dimensions in Testimony Education’ is the first version of the groundbreaking technology available for instruction in classrooms around the world. Teachers and students can ask questions that prompt real-time response from a pre-recorded video of Pinchas—engaging in virtual conversation and redefining inquiry-based education.

My mom always told me, no matter how good you get at sports, no matter how well you do at anything, people will always remember you for your character. And I truthfully feel that way with anyone I interact with. She calls it a big heart.

Join guest of honor, Rwandan Ambassador to the USA, Mathilde Mukantabana for a commemoration with featured speakers.

Join Dr. Marcy Gringlas, Secretary General Hannah Lessing, Marilyn Sinclair & Viviane Teitelbaum as they discuss the historical trajectory of antisemitism from past to present with a look to the future.

Join Dr. Kori Street as she shares how USC Shoah Foundation is using new technologies to tell the stories of survivors and to keep Holocaust memory alive.

Join Finci-Viterbi Executive Director Dr. Stephen Smith in a conversation with psychologist, author, writer and Holocaust survivor Dr. Ruth Westheimer

The Memory Generation is a new podcast by USC Shoah Foundation's Storyteller-in-Residence Rachael Cerrotti. In this series, Rachael hosts conversations about the inheritance of memory and intergenerational storytelling. The first season is now streaming. 

“Speaking About Sexuality: Male Jewish Intimacy and Agency in Oral History Interviews” Florian Zabransky (PhD candidate at the Weidenfeld Institute–Centre for German-Jewish Studies at University of Sussex, UK) 2020-2021 Margee and Douglas Greenberg Research Fellow April 6, 2021

10:00 AM PDT/ 1:00 PM EDT/ 3:00 AM AEST (+1)  Join USC Shoah Foundation Finci-Viterbi Executive Director, Stephen Smith as he speaks about his experiences leading to the founding of the National Holocaust Centre and Museum in England. 

“Research With Testimonies: Featuring the Center's 2020 Lev Student Research Fellows” Lucy Sun (USC undergraduate student, History major) and Rachel Zaretsky (MFA candidate in Art, USC Roski School of Art and Design) 2020 Beth and Arthur Lev Student Research Fellows April 14, 2021

This week, more than 20,000 people will attend Liberation 75, a virtual, global gathering for Holocaust survivors, their descendants, scholars, educators, and the wider community. The online conference, taking place May 4 to 9, is cosponsored by more than 200 organizations, including USC Shoah Foundation.

USC Shoah Foundation recently launched the Visual History Archive at Harvard University, establishing a powerful bridge from coast to coast, including a vibrant and timely panel discussion examining hate and disinformation in public discourse and concrete pathways to address the problems we face.

Under an assumed identity, Joseph André Scheinmann ran a French Resistance network of 300 agents that funneled information to the British. After his arrest and internment, he continued his scheming to save the lives of 100s of fellow prisoners.

Phil Scheinman didn’t know he had close relatives who survived the Holocaust until he saw the testimony of André Scheinmann, a cousin he calls the “Jewish James Bond”. Phil created a movie that brought together 400 family members — many of them newly discovered — to learn how André ran a network of 300 agents for the French Resistance and, even after he was sent to concentration camp, helped save dozens of lives.

USC Shoah Foundation partner and celebrated pianist Mona Golabek is scheduled to bring her livestreamed theatrical performance and concert to students and educators in New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut at two signature events later this month.

3:00 PM PDT/6:00PM EDT/8:00 AM AEST (+1)  Over the past year, budding bakers sought refuge and comfort in their kitchens, learning to bake bread. Loaves of sourdough and challah forged connections between families and cultures when we could not physically be together. These connections build on deep traditions in cultures around the world, often discussed in USC Shoah Foundation’s Visual History Archive of 55,000 testimonies of genocide survivors and witnesses.