Once Emilie Garrigou-Kempton joined the team of USC Shoah Foundation Center for Advanced Genocide Research last month as academic relations and outreach officer, she began to realize the connections she already has to the Institute.Professor Armand Abecassis, who was recently interviewed for the Institute’s Testimonies from North Africa and the Middle East Collection, was her advisor in graduate school. And her husband’s distant relative, a Holocaust survivor, gave her testimony to USC Shoah Foundation years ago.

​Once students have put the finishing touches on their videos and submitted them to their teachers, it’s time to start judging.

While the average USC student was dragging themselves out of bed to make it to their first class after Spring Break, I was--rather jet-lagged--sitting in an 800 year old room cloaked in paintings of old intellectuals and world renowned writers in a tiny corridor of Hertford College at Oxford University, wondering how on Earth I could be so lucky to miss a week of school to hang out at one of the oldest, most prestigious centers of learning in the history of Western Civilization.

USC Shoah Foundation Center for Advanced Genocide Research is seeking applicants for three fellowships until Friday, April 15 and Sunday, May 1.

Itka Zygmuntowicz recites a poem she wrote abou her experience during the Holocaust. She says Hitler could never take away her creativity or her dream to be a writer. April is National Poetry Month.

When Jennifer Binley entered college, she knew she was interested in dedicating herself to finding a way to stop mass atrocities around the world. The international relations major quickly joined USC STAND, an anti-genocide club she eventually became president of, and began interning at USC Shoah Foundation.“I found the interests of [USC STAND] often correlate to the events and goals of USC Shoah Foundation,” Binley said of her dedication to both organizations.

Stephen Smith will give a keynote address and New Dimensions in Testimony will be demoed at the festival's Alternate Realities interactive exhibition.

USC Shoah Foundation Center for Advanced Genocide Research's Research Program Officer Martha Stroud will present a paper at the symposium "Narratives and Testimonies After Conflict: The Second Generation" at Georgia State University in Atlanta, Georgia on April 18, 2016.

Surrounded by his family, Sam Harris explains why he wanted to tell his story. Live audiences will be able to have a virtual conversation with Sam as part of USC Shoah Foundation's New Dimensions in Testimony project.

Michigan student Brandon Bartley shares how testimony inspired him when he participated in the IWitness Detroit program last summer.

Holocaust survivor Helen Lazar explains that the human will to live is so strong that it can keep you going even in the darkest of times.

In this brief clip Father Krikor Guerguerian is faced with a theological question that has challenged many survivors of the Armenian Genocide. The perpetrator confesses to him that he killed his father, three brothers and confiscated their house and garden and asks Guerguerian for forgiveness.

As the indexer for USC Shoah Foundation’s Armenian Genocide Testimony Collection, I have to listen carefully to hundreds of testimonies assigning keywords to each minute so that these stories will be accessible in the Visual History Archive. Now just in time for the 101st anniversary of the Armenian Genocide we will be integrating an additional 155 indexed testimonies into the Archive. I thought this would be a fitting time to highlight some of the most interesting aspects of the 245 testimonies that will be available in the Visual History Archive Online.

This month – National Poetry Month in the U.S. – is a great time to explore just how powerful words can be.  When it comes to understanding difficult moments in history, poetry and writing can help students process and express their own thoughts about the world. Explore these three ways you can bring poetry into your classroom using tools from Facing History’s partner, USC Shoah Foundation – The Institute for Visual History and Education.

Guest blogger Stacey Perlman is a Communications Writer at Facing History and Ourselves.

Holocaust survivor Percy Kaye reads a poem he wrote about the March of the Living, an annual Holocaust remembrance walk for students. April is National Poetry Month.

On Tuesday, April 19, Celina Biniaz and Edith Umugiraneza will read poetry they’ve written about their experiences during the Holocaust and the Rwandan Genocide, respectively, in “When Memories Unfold: Poetry After Genocide.”

Growing up, David Cook heard tales of his grandfather’s time in the service during World War II ­-- particularly how he had helped liberate Buchenwald, a Nazi concentration camp in Germany.Though his grandfather passed away in 2001, this past semester, Cook had the opportunity to dive deeper into his story and World War II in his “History of the Holocaust” course taught by Professor Adam R. Seipp, USC Shoah Foundation’s first-ever Texas A&M Teaching Fellow.

​USC Shoah Foundation’s consultant in Ukraine Anna Lenchovska shared the resources of USC Shoah Foundation at a roundtable discussion for educators at the Ukraine National Museum’s Memorial to the Victims of Holodomor in Kyiv on April 7.

Ukrainian survivor Alexander Contract reflects on the Holocaust and the terrible atrocities that the world faced and continues to face all around the world. He hopes that all people can live in peace across the world.

 Lemyel Amirian touches on the power of courage. The Armenians of Van and the surrounding regions took extraordinary measures to defend themselves – and, like Mr. Amirian, fortunately, many survived to share their stories. 

Elsie Taft recalls the Great Fire of Smyna (Izmir) in September 1922 and how she was saved by American sailors.

Before he made his major league debut in 1947 breaking the color barrier in baseball, Jackie Robinson was standing up to injustice and discrimination. Holocaust camp liberator Floyd Dade remembers when his fellow serviceman, Robinson refused to sit in the back of the bus

USC Shoah Foundation published 185 Armenian Genocide testimonies in the Visual History Archive on Friday, nearly tripling the size of the Institute’s Armenian Genocide collection.

Armenian Genocide scholar Richard Hovannisian speaks about Turkish denial of the Armenian Genocide in an interview with J. Michael Hagopian in 1975.

POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews premiered an original short film about the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising featuring testimony from the Visual History Archive.

USC Shoah Foundation Center for Advanced Genocide Research will host the international conference “A Conflict? Genocide and Resistance in Guatemala,” at the University of Southern California, Sept. 11-14, 2016. The scholars profiled in this series were each selected to present their research at the conference.As a 2014 graduate of Tufts University, Miguel Zamora-Mills is one of the youngest scholars selected to present at the Center’s Guatemala conference.

David Jakubowski talks about the beginning of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising and the various physical confrontations that occurred on April 19, 1943.

Twenty-two and 71 years after surviving genocide, Edith Umugiraneza and Celina Biniaz, respectively, shared poetry they wrote about their experiences at a special event organized by DEFY, USC Shoah Foundation’s student association.

Holocaust survivor Anna Geslewitz reads a poem she wrote in 1967 reflecting on the Holocaust.