The webinar will provide instructions and helpful tips for implementing the assignment and submitting students' entries to the contest.

Rob Kuznia joined the communications department of USC Shoah Foundation as publicist last fall. Today, he is celebrating a major accomplishment from his previous life as a journalist: a Pulitzer Prize for Local Reporting.

Helena Jonas Rosenzweig recalls arriving to Oskar Schindler’s factory in Brünnlitz after being imprisoned in Auschwitz. This testimony clip is featured in the IWitness activity IWitness Video Challenge.  

USC Shoah Foundation is planning to record 20 new testimonies for the second phase of its North Africa and Middle East collection. Fundraising is currently underway for this phase to begin.

Dr. Wolf Gruner, Chair of the USC Center for Advanced Genocide Research, will be presenting a paper at "Gender, Memory and Genocide. An International Conference Marking 100 Years Since the Armenian Genocide," held in Berlin, Germany, at The Center for Research on Antisemitism, Berlin Institute of Technology.

Diane Wohl first visited USC Shoah Foundation when it was housed in trailers on the Universal Studios backlot nearly 20 years ago, and her support for its mission and programs has only continued to grow over the years.

In 1942 Nazi Germany occupied the French North African country of Tunisia and implemented anti-Jewish policy. At the age of 13, Eva Boukris Weisel and her family went into hiding, protected by Khaled Abdul Wahab, an Arab Muslim. Wahab saved nearly 20 Jews by hiding them in the stables at his farm. Weisel’s testimony is from the Testimonies from North Africa and the Middle East collection.

In 1942 Nazi Germany occupied the French North African country of Tunisia and implemented anti-Jewish policy. At the age of 13, Eva Boukris Weisel and her family went into hiding, protected by Khaled Abdul Wahab, an Arab Muslim. Wahab saved nearly 20 Jews by hiding them in the stables at his farm. Weisel’s testimony is from the Testimonies from North Africa and the Middle East collection.

What does it mean to live 70 years after the liberation of Auschwitz in a world in deep crisis? What does it mean with all we know about the damage that hatred causes – after all the pain we have gone through – that we are hurtling out of control into an inferno of rage that takes us right back to where we started?  Why are survivors of the Holocaust who walked out of the camps with at least the hope that their own suffering was not in vain, dying disappointed?

USC Shoah Foundation has published a new online exhibit and two new IWitness activities that expand the Institute’s educational offerings in terms of language and subject matter.

Julia Lentini describes the events on March 8, 1943, when the town mayor told her father that Julia's family would be deported from their home to Frankfurt for a few days. The family was deported to the Auschwitz concentration and extermination camp. This testimony clip is featured in the new IWitness activity: The Nazi Genocide Against the Rome and Sinti (Gypsy) People.

Teachers in Hungary are once again invited to learn how to construct their own testimony-based classroom activities.

Michael Banhidi recalls how anti-Semitism and racial discrimination spread throughout his neighborhood in Hungary.  

Alice Herscovitch first became Executive Director of the Montreal Holocaust Memorial Centre in 2007, and it didn’t take long for her realize the incredible untapped resource that was the MHMC’s collection of 550 Holocaust survivor testimonies.“I knew we had an extraordinary collection, but for what?” Herscovitch recalled. “Why did we record these if we’re not going to do something with them?”

With the arrival of new testimonies and indexers, USC Shoah Foundation is advancing to the next stage of its Preserving the Legacy initiative.

Paul Barna speaks on the difficulty of emigrating from Europe to Canada in 1957. He reflects on his life in Montreal including his participation in the local Jewish community.  

Two months after her Auschwitz: The Past is Present trip to Poland, Karen Wells is more committed than ever to sharing what she learned and making sure the stories of survivors are not forgotten.

Jeffrey Langham oversees the management and the strategic development of the Institute's website. Prior to the Institute, Jeffrey worked at a Los Angeles-area design firm for seven years as a web designer/programmer with experience in print design and copywriting. He received his doctorate in English Literature from the University of Southern California.

The Holocaust collection in USC Shoah Foundation's Visual History Archive contains nearly 53,000 testimonies; however, only a mere six of those testimonies are from survivors who were persecuted by the Nazis for being gay: one in English, three in German, one in French, and one in Dutch. There are other gay survivors we have in the Archive, but they were persecuted by the Nazis for the greater sin of being Jewish; Gad Beck being one of them. The meager number says a lot about the history of the gay men who lived through the Nazi regime and who came out the other end willing and unafraid to speak about their lives.

Montreal Holocaust Memorial Centre (MHMC) and Sarah and Chaim Neuberger Holocaust Education Centre in Toronto announced an historic agreement to have their testimonies integrated in the Visual History Archive as part of the Institute’s Preserving the Legacy initiative.

Albrecht Becker recounts the atmosphere for gays in Nazi Germany while Röhm was still in charge of the SA and how the relative freedom he enjoyed during that time changed dramatically after Röhm's assassination in June 1934.

In this clip from his testimony, Albrecht Becker recalls the circumstances of his arrest and a particular member of the Gestapo by the name of Gerun who may have saved his life.

Montreal, March 23, 2015 – As the world marks the 70th anniversary of the end of World War II and the liberation of the Jews of Europe, the Montreal Holocaust Memorial Centre (MHMC) and Sarah and Chaim Neuberger Holocaust Education Centre in Toronto are proud to announce an historic agreement with USC Shoah Foundation - The Institute for Visual History and Education to have their testimonies integrated in the Visual History Archive as part of the Institute’s Preserving the Legacy initiative.

Bella Fox recalls the terrifying experience of arriving to Auschwitz-II Birkenau from the Sighet ghetto in Romania. Bella’s testimony was collected by the Montreal Holocaust Memorial Centre and will be integrated into the Visual History Archive part of the Preserving the Legacy Initiative.

Dawn Skorczewski started out studying the role of the interviewer in Holocaust survivor testimony, but before long, she was captivated by the Visual History Archive’s great wealth of material on survivors from the Netherlands.

Louis de Groot describes being hidden by different gentile families in the Netherlands during WWII. While in hiding, he attended a Christmas church service and remembers how the pastor urged the congregation to help save Jewish lives.

Free and open to the public, monthly Institute visits give guests a chance to explore the life stories of survivors and witnesses of the Holocaust and other genocides and to discover how their memories are being used to overcome prejudice, intolerance and bigotry. The public visit for May is full. The next scheduled visit will be available soon. Description:

Out of the dozens of films, concerts and other projects he’s worked on throughout his career, Steve Purcell says the USC Shoah Foundation-produced educational film One Day in Auschwitz is the most meaningful of them all.

Comcast subscribers will be able to watch USC Shoah Foundation testimonies and films exploring the theme of music on Comcast’s second annual Days of Remembrance: PastFORWARD broadcast.