This lecture offered an examination of pro-state paramilitary violence in the Syrian conflict. It analyzed the emergence and transformation of pro-state paramilitarism in Syria in the context of the uprising and civil war. 

In this lecture, Gabór Tóth discussed the ways text and data mining technology has helped to recover fragments of lost experiences of Nazi persecution out of oral history interviews with survivors. He also demonstrated how a data-driven anthology of these fragments has been built.

In this lecture, Professor Peter Hayes detailed how and why the Nazi regime managed to kill an unprecedented number of people with ferocious speed, yet without applying significant quantities of German personnel or resources.

On this day, 27 years ago, my city of Sarajevo became a besieged city, and remained such for the following four years. A seven-year old at the time, I remember those first days of April of 1992 well. On one of them, my family’s Yugo 45 – an iconic car model of the former Yugoslavia – broke down right next to the Kasarna Maršala Tita (military barracks), where the U.S. Embassy is located today. Without a car, we could not go home that night, so we returned to my grandparents’ house. Later that night, the Bosnian Serb forces took away all the Bosnian Muslim men from our street and killed them. That Yugo 45, which we sold for some firewood months later, saved my father. This is how I remember that April of 1992.

The portrait I have been working on of Dario isn’t complete yet, but what an honor it was to have met him and is now to engage with his testimony through the act of painting,” said David Kassan of hi

In this webinar, the USC Shoah Foundation Center for Advanced Genocide Research team will provide a deep dive into the USC Shoah Foundation Visual History Archive, including its history; methodologies of testimony collection, preservation, and indexing; current state of the archive and its collections; and how to use its search engines and interface for research and teaching. The participants will learn how to unlock the research potential of the archive and be able to ask questions and get assistance with effectively searching the archive.

USC Shoah Foundation welcomed staff from the educational program at Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum (ABSM) in Oświęcim, Poland, to its Los Angeles headquarters for a week-long collaboration.

USC Shoah foundation is saddened to learn of the recent passing of Anneliese Nossbaum, who survived a Jewish ghetto and three concentration camps. Anneliese passed away March 23, 2020 after falling ill within weeks of returning from a trip that commemorated the 75-year anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz. She was 91. She was born on January 8, 1929 in Guben, Germany as Anneliese Winterberg.  At the age of two, her family moved to Bonn where her father later became the rabbi of their synagogue.  

Only a day after the University of Southern California announced that it would conduct a three-day test to move all classes online, which soon turned into a permanent arrangement until the end of Spring semester, my colleague and I gave our last in-person introduction to the USC Shoah Foundation Visual History Archive to a USC class. Perhaps serendipitously, one of the topics discussed in this class was physical health.

Peter Hayes is Professor Emeritus of History and German and Theodore Zev Weiss Holocaust Educational Foundation Professor Emeritus of Holocaust Studies at Northwestern University and a former chair of the Academic Committee of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Among his thirteen books are The Oxford Handbook of Holocaust Studies (co-edited with John K. Roth), How Was It Possible? A Holocaust Reader, and Why? Explaining the Holocaust, which also has appeared in German and Spanish translations and shortly will be in Chinese, Polish, and Slovak, as well.

I much enjoyed my stay at the USC Shoah Foundation Center for Advanced Genocide Research in early March, just before the pandemic turned all of our lives upside down. Meeting the wonderful members of the staff and seeing how much the operations of both the Foundation and the Center have grown since my last visit in 2014 were remarkable experiences.

  “Geographies of Persecution in Occupied Paris: Place and Space in Survivors' Testimonies” Maël Le Noc (PhD Candidate in Geography, Texas State University) 2019-2020 Margee and Douglas Greenberg Research Fellow March 12, 2020  

  “Makeshift Murder: The Holocaust at Its Peak” Peter Hayes (Northwestern University) 2019-2020 Shapiro Scholar in Residence March 5, 2020

Twenty-six years after the Genocide Against the Tutsi, please join Finci-Viterbi Executive Director Stephen D. Smith as he discusses concepts of home with genocide survivor Edith Umugiraneza. Stephen Smith will be joined by Executive Director of Aegis Trust Freddy Mutanguha and Rwandan Ambassador to the United States Mathilda Mukantabana.   On a day when Rwanda remembers its terrifying past, our conversation will treasure those who were lost and reflect on their values of family, community and home in our world today. 

What does home mean to you during this difficult time? Home doesn’t have to be four walls. Home is an idea, a concept, a place of being. Home can be a song, a person, a smell. It can be an action, a story, a dream for the future. Home isn’t always gentle. Sometimes it is challenging, maybe even frightening. Sometimes it is a place you want to run away from and sometimes it is a place from where you are forced to flee. Sometimes home moves with you and sometimes you never go back. Home may be the family you were born into, or it may be the one you create.

A live online webinar free to students. Starting at 9:30 AM, PDT. Register now to join!

On April 17, 1975, the city of Phnom Penh fell to the Khmer Rouge, triggering a four-year genocide. In commemoration, USC Shoah Foundation is spotlighting its Cambodia-based learning activities for high school students.

Pictured: Holocaust survivor Elly Gotz who gave his testimony to the Azrieli Foundation in 2018. His interview is one of 31 new testimonies from the Azrieli Foundation that have been indexed and catalogued in the Visual History Archive. This week’s semi-annual VHA release adds 128 new testimonies to the 55,000-strong collection. All the updated testimonies are available at 163 access sites worldwide.

RSVP Today! Get to know USC Shoah Foundation in this brief introductory webinar! Participants will have an opportunity to:

RSVP Today! Get to know USC Shoah Foundation in this brief introductory webinar! Participants will have an opportunity to:

Through our online educational platform IWitness, we will continue our series of Mindful Exploration student webinars. We hope educators and students will join us. Mindful Explorations are age-appropriate for middle and high school students. If you can't join us live, we encourage you to check out the on-demand webinar recordings.

Through our online educational platform IWitness, we will continue our series of Mindful Exploration student webinars. We hope educators and students will join us. Mindful Explorations are age-appropriate for middle and high school students. If you can't join us live, we encourage you to check out the on-demand webinar recordings.