Sam Gustman, USC Shoah Foundation Chief Technology Officer, reflects on his long friendship with Arnold Spielberg, who passed away August 25 at the age of 103.

Sam Gustman has been chief technology officer (CTO) of the Shoah Foundation since 1994. Gustman is also associate dean and CTO at the USC Libraries where he oversees IT for the Libraries and started the USC Digital Repository.

In this lecture, Allison Somogyi discusses her research project considering sexual violence among Hungarian-Jewish women during the Holocaust and the ways in which victims have – and have not – talked about this (often) gender-specific trauma. In her research, she explores the difference in the ways Hungarian-Jewish women discussed sexual violence at the time of the Final Solution and its immediate aftermath by analyzing wartime diaries and letters.

All university campuses are first and foremost places of learning. As such, I believe it is our duty to use this controversy as a teaching moment, for Jewish and non-Jewish students alike.

A new national survey administered by Lucid Collaborative LLC and YouGov shows that Holocaust education in high school reflects gains not only in historical knowledge but also manifests in cultivating more empathetic, tolerant, and engaged students.

“I remember lots and lots of light,” Karla Ballard told me about her childhood home just outside of Philadelphia, a community called Friends of the Fairfax. “So much light. And a beautiful, long dining room table. My father was an entrepreneur and my mom was a nurse. I just remember lots of light coming into that house and having grandparents around watching us, and having Susan, Eileen, and Max — my mother’s best friends.”

Paul Parks, a Native American from the Seminole Tribe in Florida, speaks to his experience as an American liberator during World War II. He gave his testimony to USC Shoah Foundation in 1995.

“Walking a Fine Line: Hungarian-Jewish Survivors and the Discourse Surrounding Sexual Violence in Postwar Testimonies” Allison Somogyi USC-Yale Postdoctoral Research Fellow August 27, 2020

USC Shoah Foundation and Delirio Films in association with Neko Productions have completed an animated short film that brings to life the remarkable childhood journey of Holocaust survivor Dr. Ruth K. Westheimer escaping Nazi Germany, as she faced the choices that made her who she is today.


In this clip from her testimony Dora talks about meeting her second husband and overcoming the guilt of finally being happy for the first time in her life.

Wilma Bulkin Siegel was seven years old in 1945 when her father took her to the movies to watch newsreels of the liberation of Nazi concentration camps. “Why couldn’t I have done something about it?” she whispered to her father. Decades later, Siegel, a retired New York City oncologist and a pioneer in hospice care, has discovered a new tool for making an impact: a paintbrush.

USC Shoah Foundation and Discovery Education announced the winners of the 2020 Stronger Than Hate Challenge. The Challenge and the 2020 winners exemplify the power of youth voices to connect communities and the role of social and emotional learning in empowering students to overcome hate.

View Dr. Ruth’s conversation with filmmakers, moderated by film journalist and historian Susan King and hosted by USC Shoah Foundation Finci-Viterbi Executive Director Stephen Smith, from this special museum event 15 September 2020.

Few friends of USC Shoah Foundation have supported the Institute longer than Al Tapper. In the past two decades, he has provided essential funding for the Institute’s general operations, supporting activities across our research and education initiatives, and providing seed funding for new and innovative projects.

For nearly a decade, the Alpern Family Foundation has supported USC Shoah Foundation’s efforts to collect testimony and use them around the world to combat hatred and intolerance. Executive Director Rochelle Rubin says that the Alpern Family Foundation’s dedication to the Institute is motivated by its support of Holocaust education and belief that teaching tolerance and empathy is essential to counteract hatred.

For USC Rossier School of Education Professor Alan Arkatov, supporting USC Shoah Foundation is a family affair. Alan’s role started when he created USC Rossier’s Center EDGE (Engagement Driven Global Education) -- a new research center dedicated to educational innovation and cross-sector partnerships that focuses on student engagement.

Lindsey Spindle, President of the Jeff Skoll Group and a member of the Institute’s Next General Council, suggested we reach out to the team at the Skoll World Forum about our Dimensions in Testimony (DiT) program, given the obvious connection to theme of proximity. Now available in select museums, DiT is an interactive biography that enables people to ask questions of survivors and receive an appropriate reply from a selection of more than a thousand pre-recorded answers.

The story of Sara and Asa Shapiro is one of shared tragedy and shared success. Both were born in the small pre-war, predominantly Jewish town of Korets, in what was then Poland and is now Ukraine, into large Jewish families. Both survived the Holocaust. Sara escaped the ghetto and pretended to be a Ukrainian orphan while working as a maid. Asa was in a Russian Labor Camp in Siberia and then was subscripted into the Russian Army. They married, moved to America with practically nothing, settled in Detroit, and built a large family and a thriving business.

“This effort is especially important now when the world is experiencing a rise of violent antisemitism,” says Ilia Salita, CEO of Genesis Philanthropy Group. “We believe that Dimensions in Testimony will help counteract this and, more broadly, to disseminate knowledge about the tragedy of Soviet Jewry during the Shoah and the heroism of Jews who fought against the Nazis.”

“I remember President Bill Clinton speaking at our 10th anniversary gala about his regret that the Genocide Against the Tutsi in Rwanda happened on his watch,” Liberman said. “A genocide was in the making, and I did not want this to be on our watch. The Institute immediately sent a team to record the survivors' testimonies to ensure the world heard directly from the Rohingya before it was too late.”