A cohort of forty-one new students and five returning Junior Intern Emissaries convened virtually on November 14 for the first session of the 2021-2022 William P. Lauder Junior Internship Program.

The highly selective program provides a dynamic and unique learning opportunity for students in 7th–11th grades to engage with testimonies–personal stories–from survivors and witnesses of genocide to develop their own voice, learn to recognize the patterns and impact of hate, and gain work experience and academic and digital skills.

In 2018, under the initiative of the Yale Library’s Fortunoff Video Archive, three leading institutions holding large collections of Holocaust testimonies agreed to make a portion of their materials available as transcripts, along with a subset of video recordings, in Let Them Speak / In Search of the Drowned: Testimonies and Testimonial Fragments of the Holocaust (LTS). LTS is a searchable digital anthology of testimonies which examines survivor experiences and uses them to understand the experiences of those who did not survive. It is also a dynamic monograph with essays by Dr.

Longtime USC Shoah Foundation Executive Committee and Board of Councilors member Mickey Shapiro has provided a major endowed gift to create an inaugural academic chair at the Institute that will be dedicated to deepening the study of the impact of Holocaust education.

On the night of Sidney Bratt’s interview his family was celebrating Hanukkah. He recites the Hanukkah candles blessings from the Jewish prayer book (Siddur) which once belonged to his mother, and is surrounded by his wife and grandchildren while doing so.

As a girl in Budapest, Olga Menczer always looked forward to the fourth night of Hanukkah—when she finally got her turn to light the family menorah. Olga recorded her story of survival with us in 1998 and continued to educate her community in New Jersey for many years. We join Olga in wishing all who are sharing in the light a happy fourth candle.