Holocaust survivor Sir Frank Lowy speaks about the causes that are important to him.

LOS ANGELES - June 26, 2017 – While students across America enjoy their summer vacation, the education department at USC Shoah Foundation is busily making major new features to its award-winning IWitness educational website for educators and their students that will be ready by the time school resumes in the fall. Coming on the heels of a successful initiative, 100 Days to Inspire Respect, these new offerings will further support educators around the world by building new and innovative ways to inspire respect and empower students to take positive action in the world.

The workshop in Venice is titled “Data Sharing, Holocaust Documentation and the Digital Humanities. Best Practices, Case Studies, Benefits.”

Marcel Mahdal, a graduate of the USC Shoah Foundation Master Teacher program in Czech Republic launched a project last week in which students from two schools work together to create their own local IWalk.

Hilda describes the living conditions in the Uherský Brod ghetto in Czechoslovakia. After four years in the ghetto, she and her family were deported to Theresienstadt.

In one testimony in the Visual History Archive, a Rwandan Tutsi Genocide survivor recounts a disturbing story from his childhood: At his school, he and the other Tutsi students were put on lockdown in their dorms while the school administrators met with the Hutu students to tell them that their Tutsi classmates were plotting to kill them.

Megan Arizmendi is a recent USC graduate, with a Bachelor's degree in business administration and film. With a passion for the intersection of film and education, she was introduced to USC Shoah Foundation, and is an intern in the communications department. She is committed to helping educate future generations on genocide through the power of film, in hopes of preventing violence and discrimination in years to come.

The Fourth of July has become an annual norm for me - filled with hot dogs and hamburgers, red white and blue. However, this year is a bit different for me. Working at USC Shoah Foundation has opened my eyes, and taught me that this holiday goes far beyond the parties and decorations.

Angelica explains why she feels it is important for people to stay informed and involved in social activism in order to promote tolerance.

Holocaust survivor Max Buchbinder gives his final memories and pays tribute to his deceased family members at the end of his testimony.

Rachel discusses the importance of respecting others and accepting all people.

Take a look at USC Shoah Foundation's impact by the numbers as of summer 2017.

In this series, we take a closer look at the new features and resources coming to IWitness in time for the 2017-2018 school year.

Griffin Williams is challenging assumptions held by some of the most famous names in Holocaust scholarship as a DEFY Undergraduate Research Fellow at USC Shoah Foundation Center for Advanced Genocide Research this summer.

USC Shoah Foundation Center for Advanced Genocide Research staff are in Australia this month for several presentations and a workshop centered on the Visual History Archive and testimony-based research.

The USC Shoah Foundation Center for Advanced Genocide Research invites applications for its 2017-2018 Postdoctoral Research Fellowship for the Study of Racial and Religious Biases on College Campuses.

USC Shoah Foundation was invited to give a presentation about its IWalk program at Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum’s international education conference, “Awareness-Responsibility-Future,” earlier this week.

During his two-week internship at USC Shoah Foundation this summer, Ohio 10th grader Dov Ratner is testing the latest New Dimensions in Testimony interviews by asking the computer system questions for each survivor and noting the accuracy of the responses he receives in return. But there’s one interviewee he doesn’t need New Dimensions in Testimony to have a conversation with: Holocaust survivor Renee Firestone, his great-grandmother.

For the first time this fall, IWitness will begin offering virtual reality educational resources, such as its VR film Lala. Learn more about how testimony-based virtual reality will be integrated with IWitness’s core principles and pedagogy.

Acadia Grantham decided to take action against bullying in her IWitness Video Challenge entry, “Silence,” which won second place in the 2017 national contest. The IWitness Video Challenge asks students to submit short videos to show how they were inspired by testimony to make positive choices and create value in their community. The contest is open to middle and high school students across the United States and Canada (except Quebec). 

Following another arduous school year, 17 teachers who participated in the 2016 edition of USC Shoah Foundation’s Master Teacher program in Hungary returned to present the testimony-based lessons they developed and piloted in their classes over the past year.

Four undergraduate students from around the world are hard at work developing new search capabilities for the Visual History Archive as part of the annual Research in Industrial Projects for Students (RIPS) program hosted by the UCLA Institute for Pure and Applied Mathematics (IPAM).

Working on assignment from her teacher Katherine Rastrick, Acadia Grantham constructed a video about speaking out against bullying and won second place in the 2017 IWitness Video Challenge.

With 21 participants and one observer, USC Shoah Foundation’s Teaching with Testimony in the 21st Century Master Teacher program in Budapest got off to its biggest start yet earlier this month.

Shayna Kantor turned her passion for American Sign Language into her third-place winning IWitness Video Challenge project.

A comparison of USC Shoah Foundation’s fiscal year-end stats from 2016 and 2017 reveals the Institute’s ever-increasing impact around the world.

Members of London’s Armenian community learned about USC Shoah Foundation and its Armenian Genocide testimony collection at a special presentation on June 18.

The new testimony will join an interview Hovannisian gave filmmaker J. Michael Hagopian in 1975 that is already available to view in the Visual History Archive.