An online lecture by Wolf Gruner, Founding Director of the USC Shoah Foundation Center for Advanced Genocide Research, organized by The Wiener Holocaust Library

The USC Casden Institute presents a Casden Conversation featuring Dr. Wolf Gruner in conversation with Dr. Steve Ross

Commissioned by Carnegie Hall and presented as part of the 2019 Create Justice forum, The Just and the Blind is a powerful multimedia experience that illuminates the unseen and under-heard experiences of incarcerated youth and their families. Artfully and powerfully combining live performance, short films, and honest conversation, spoken-word artist Marc Bamuthi Joseph, composer Daniel Bernard Roumain, and street-dance pioneer

Two new books published today capture the extraordinary story of Lisa Jura, an Austrian Jewish refugee who survived the Holocaust and then pursued her dream to become a concert pianist.  

This documentary chronicles the Holocaust as experienced in Italy, from the racial laws Mussolini enacted in 1938 through the German invasion in 1943 and the liberation of Auschwitz in 1945. The experiences are made personal through the use of testimony from the archive of the USC Shoah Foundation Institute for Visual History and Education. Nine Italian citizens, all survivors of Auschwitz, share their stories; their testimonies are woven among personal and historical photographs and additional archival footage.

In January 2017, USC Shoah Foundation launched 100 Days to Inspire Respect to provide teachers of civics, history, English and other subjects new thought-provoking resources for the first 100 days of the incoming administration.   

1:00 pm PST/4:00 pm EST/8:00 am AEDT (+1)  Join USC Annenberg for a conversation about combatting anti-Semitism in the United States.

11:30 am PST/2:30 pm EST/6:30 am AEDT (+1) The film will be available to stream for a fee of $12 between Jan. 25-28.  Live Virtual Conversation event is free and features:  Zuzanna Surowy, Lead Actress  Steven Oritt, Director/Producer Mickey Shapiro, Executive Producer, USC Shoah  Foundation Board of Councilors Exec. Committee Member Moderated by Stephen D. Smith, Co-Producer and Finci-Viterbi Executive Director, USC Shoah Foundation 

Liberation Heroes: The Last Eyewitnesses explores the journeys of Liberators and Liberation Witnesses drawing parallels between the past and present. These one-of-a-kind stories of World War II heroes serve as a compelling reminder of what is at stake as antisemitism and xenophobia have reached a new crisis level, and as a call to action to stand against hatred in all its forms.

As part of USC Shoah Foundation’s collaborations for International Holocaust Remembrance Day, excerpts of seven Dimensions in Testimony interviews are being projected on to the facade of Beit Yaakov – Geneva's Great Synagogue.  Dimensions in Testimony is an initiative by USC Shoah Foundation that enables people to ask questions that prompt real-time responses from pre-recorded video interviews with Holocaust survivors and other witnesses to genocide. 

USC Shoah Foundation this week will launch a Teaching with Testimony Webinar for K-5 educators featuring the exclusive global premiere of Ruth: A Little Girl’s Big Journey, an animated short film that brings to life the remarkable childhood journey of media personality, author and Holocaust survivor Dr. Ruth K. Westheimer, known the world over as Dr. Ruth.  

Today, on the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, a complex of concentration and extermination camps, we take the time to honor the millions of victims of the Holocaust by listening to those who survived these atrocities, and using their remarkable testimonies of survival and loss to cultivate empathy and respect in future generations so that these atrocities may never happen again. “History shows that the only way to stop genocide is to sound the alarm before it is too late.” 

The third annual Stronger Than Hate Challenge is now open and offers students the opportunity to win $10,000 in prizing. Students aged 13-18 are encouraged to submit a project demonstrating how a community can be stronger than hate. Full rules and submission details are available here.

In this clip from her 1996 testimony, Franka Berk discusses the importance of tolerance and loving one another.

Join USC Shoah Foundation and the Nancy & David Wolf Holocaust & Humanity Center for a digital ribbon-cutting ceremony to open the new Dimensions in Testimony exhibit, a new, permanent exhibit at Union Terminal that utilizes artificial-intelligence technology to facilitate “virtual conversations” with Holocaust survivors.

Alan Moskin is the first WWII Liberator to be filmed for Dimensions in Testimony, detailing his harrowing experience of liberating Gunskirchen concentration camp in Austria. Visitors to The National WWII Museum will be able to interact with Alan's biography beginning 4 February.

The coup in Myanmar earlier this week, ending the country's experiment with limited democracy, brought to power military and police implicated in carrying out genocide against the Rohingya people in 2017.    This troubling development could result in further consequences for the Rohingya and other ethnic minorities in Myanmar. More than 600,000 people remain at risk—perhaps now even more than ever.    

Two museums have opened installations of Dimensions in Testimony, USC Shoah Foundation's interactive biography series.  In New Orleans, visitors to the National World War II Museum can interact with Staff Sergeant Alan Moskin, the first WWII Liberator filmed for Dimensions in Testimony. Moskin was a member of the 66th Infantry Regiment, 71st Infantry Division, that liberated Gunskirchen concentration camp in Austria. The exhibition runs through July 25, 2021.

USC Shoah Foundation will next week launch the U.S. premiere of The Tattooed Torah, an animated film that tells the inspirational story of a Torah rescued and restored after the Holocaust.  The film, based on Marvell Ginsburg’s beloved children’s book of the same name, recounts the true story of the rescue and restoration of a small Torah from Brno, Czechoslovakia. In the film, the Torah is described as the most “precious possession” of the Jewish people and is a symbol that represents memories tied to cultural heritage, family, hope and resilience. 

An online lecture by Wolf Gruner (Founding Director, USC Shoah Foundation Center for Advanced Genocide Research) Organized by the Johannesburg Holocaust & Genocide Centre and The Base Cosponsored by the USC Shoah Foundation Center for Advanced Genocide Research

Peg LeVine, PhD, EdD is a psychologist, anthropologist, sculptor, and Associate Professor at University of Melbourne; she is a research affiliate with the Centre for Advanced Genocide Studies in Los Angeles. Peg is a USA and Australian citizen and resides in Melbourne.

In his testimonial archived with the USC Shoah Foundation, George Weiss spoke to the dread and exile he endured as a child during Nazi Party rule. This chronicle is about the man who sculptured all he lived, imagined and embodied.

An online lecture by Florian Zabransky (PhD candidate at the Weidenfeld Institute–Centre for German-Jewish Studies at University of Sussex, UK) 2020-2021 Margee and Douglas Greenberg Research Fellow Organized by the USC Shoah Foundation Center for Advanced Genocide Research Cosponsored by the USC Department of Gender and Sexuality Studies

In this lecture, Alan Rosen considers the special manner of witness found in Holocaust-era calendars composed in ghettos, in camps, and in hiding. The marking of fast days and festivals tell a remarkable story; the form, organization, and languages of the calendars convey a related one. And as with testimony in general, what is omitted—a date or a month, a name or a script—speaks volumes. At times, moreover, such calendars served as vehicles for sacred writings, images and symbols as well as for camouflaged defiance. The lecture is based on his recent book The Holocaust’s Jewish Calendars: Keeping Time Sacred, Making Time Holy.

The Casden Faculty and Graduate Student Research Seminar invite you to a discussion with Jennifer Thompson, Maurice Amado Professor of Applied Jewish Ethics and Civic Engagement, California State University, Northridge

The USC Shoah Foundation Center for Advanced Genocide Research invites research proposals from USC undergraduate students and USC graduate students for the 2021 Beth and Arthur Lev Student Research Fellowship.

IWitness has created a new series of 10-minute, daily testimony-based lessons for students that support social-emotional learning and can extend student learning with Echoes & Reflections. Using testimony clips on the themes of identity, gratitude, and resilience, this webinar will model the activities that are now available for classroom use.

An online lecture by Lauren Cantillon (PhD candidate in the Department of Culture, Media & Creative Industries at King’s College London, UK) 2020-2021 Robert J. Katz Research Fellow in Genocide Studies Organized by the USC Shoah Foundation Center for Advanced Genocide Research Cosponsored by the USC Department of Gender and Sexuality Studies

USC Shoah Foundation’s Dimensions in Testimony enables people to ask questions that prompt real-time responses from pre-recorded video interviews with Holocaust survivors and other witnesses to genocide. This innovative project integrates advanced filming techniques, specialized display technologies, and next generation natural language processing to create an interactive biography that humanizes the individual story. Pairing Dimensions in Testimony with Echoes & Reflections helps educators pair historical context and effective pedagogical principles with this new and impactful technology. During this webinar, teachers will discover the variety of ways that they can meet and interact with Holocaust survivor, Pinchas Gutter.