USC Shoah Foundation and the Maimonides Institute for Medicine, Ethics and the Holocaust are partnering to develop new and innovative educational programing on medical ethics and the Holocaust. The Holocaust marked a profound and sadistic deviation from traditional notions of medical ethics, with medical and scientific communities in the Third Reich actively participating in the labeling, persecution and eventual mass murder of millions deemed “unfit.”

On August 2, 1944, nearly 3,000 Roma and Sinti women, men and children were murdered in the gas chambers of Auschwitz-Birkenau.

There is gratitude deep inside of grief. A feeling of, how lucky was I to have this friendship at all. That’s how I feel about my dear Rabbi Bent Melchior who passed away in Copenhagen on July 28, 2021. He was 92-years-old.

​We Share the Same Sky weaves together the stories of these two young women--Hana as a refugee who remains one step ahead of the Nazis at every turn, and Rachael, whose insatiable curiosity to touch the past guides her into the lives of countless strangers, bringing her love and tragic loss. Throughout the course of her twenties, Hana's history becomes a guidebook for Rachael in how to live a life empowered by grief.

In partnership with Aspen Film, the event series opens with a screening and special panel discussion of the award-winning feature film My Name Is Sara. The film is based on the true story of 13-year-old Sara Góralnik, who, after escaping a Jewish Ghetto in Poland and losing her family at the outset of the Holocaust, hides in plain sight, passing as an Orthodox Christian, and ultimately survives against all odds.

Recently released by Focus Features, Final Account, the documentary from Participant Media, shares never-before-seen interviews with the last living generation of people to have participated in Adolf Hitler’s Third Reich. Filmed over a 10-year period, the timely documentary raises questions about authority, conformity, complicity, perpetration, national identity, and responsibility, as men and women—ranging from former SS members to civilians—reckon with their memories, perceptions, and personal appraisals of their role in the Holocaust.

For decades Nathan Poremba deflected his son Joel’s questions about his experiences as a child during the Holocaust. But when an interview with USC Shoah Foundation inspired Nathan to talk, Joel could not bear to face his father’s past. It would take a fateful trip to Israel 20 years later to bring the two together to explore the story.

Twenty years after the deadliest terrorist attack ever committed on U.S. soil, have we gained enough perspective to evaluate the impact of 9/11 on our society and heal the wounds of its aftermath? USC Shoah Foundation Finci-Viterbi Executive Director Stephen Smith joins leaders from New Ground, a Muslim-Jewish partnership for change; 30 Years After, an Iranian-American Jewish organization; and the Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles for a discussion about the legacy of the September 11 attacks.

Produced by USC Shoah Foundation, the award-winning Two Sides of Survival brings together stories from the East and West, chronicling how Jews who fled the Nazis in Europe, and Chinese who were threatened by Japanese occupation, improbably found refuge close to one another in the 1930’s and during World War II. Buy ticket (Use discount code "Shoah Foundation" at checkout)

The documentary Two Sides of Survival just landed Winner of Best Documentary Short at the Angeles Film Festival. Produced by USC Shoah Foundation, Two Sides of Survival brings together stories from the East and West, chronicling how Jews who fled the Nazis in Europe, and Chinese who were threatened by Japanese occupation, improbably found refuge close to one another in the 1930’s and during World War II.

USC Shoah Foundation today launches its 2021-2022 Back to School package, a suite of testimony-based resources on IWitness to help educators navigate the complex issues created by the Covid-19 pandemic and surfaced by the recent upsurge in social movements demanding racial justice. This year’s classroom activities and educator professional development modules are based on testimony from the Visual History Archive that help students to critically evaluate historical context, consider various perspectives and impacts, and reflect on personal connections.

We will explore the history behind the exhibits, discuss the nature of memory and memorials, and discover how the world remembers the Shoah and honors the lives we lost. We will also explore how that memory is interconnected to genocides, both past and present.

USC Shoah Foundation is committed to preserving Holocaust testimony and making those testimonies accessible, but in our current climate, deepfake tactics that manipulate videos and photos threaten to delegitimize real testimonies.

Claire Denault’s Southern California private high school had a problem with classism. So she decided to approach the issue in a way she knew would resonate with her peers: through story. As the student government leader who facilitated a weekly school-wide forum, she invited students to anonymously submit testimonies and personal accounts about how they had been disenfranchised or marginalized because of their socioeconomic status. Claire and other students read those narratives at town hall, and intense dialogue followed—that day and for weeks after.

USC Shoah Foundation is looking for 40 students across the country in 7th– 11th grades representative of diverse backgrounds and academic skills who are interested in participating in its highly competitive William P. Lauder Junior Internship Program. The program provides a dynamic and unique learning opportunity to engage with testimonies – personal stories – from survivors and witnesses of genocide to develop their own voice.

A four-year initiative to bring together the expertise of USC Shoah Foundation and the Azrieli Foundation—Canada’s leading nationwide Holocaust education program—has culminated with the release of a robust new destination for teachers and students with a variety of bilingual educational materials based on the memoirs and testimonies of Canadian Holocaust survivors.

Join Dr. Ruth Westheimer in conversation with Rabbi Peter J. Rubinstein after a screening of her animated short film "Ruth: A Little Girl's Big Journey," told in her own voice as she recounts how she survived the Holocaust as a young girl.

USC Shoah Foundation today launches a redesigned IWitness website reimagined to make teaching with testimony more effective, approachable and cutting-edge. The new site features all of the functionality educators have praised in IWitness—only better, faster, and more user-friendly.

In this special 30-minute webinar, USC Shoah Foundation staff will introduce the newest features of the redesigned IWitness! Learn to navigate the new platform and become acquainted with the new digital tools available to you.

Yvette Rugasaguhunga, a Tutsi survivor, and Jacob Tumwine, an Rwanda Patriotic Army liberator, discuss the October 1st invasion and its lasting impact.

Today, October 1st, marks the day in 1990 that Rwandan Patriotic Front troops crossed into Rwanda from neighboring Uganda and the beginning of a sequence of events that culminated in the 1994 Genocide Against the Tutsi that claimed as many as one million lives over the course of approximately 100 days.

Grayson Schmidt is a writer and multimedia journalist with USC News. He comes to USC with news experience in print, radio and television. He also worked as a crime reporter for three years in Iowa, and is well aware of the irony. https://news.usc.edu/author/grayson-schmidt/

Executive Director Stephen D. Smith will step down at the end of 2021 but continue to serve the institute as executive director emeritus.

Until he retired from the Soviet Red Army in 1967, Leonid Rozenberg carried the banner at the head of the semi-annual military parade in the city of Lugansk, in what is now Ukraine, with hundreds of fellow soldiers marching behind him and thousands of spectators cheering him on. Although highly decorated – his chest was covered in medals – the honor of leading the parade was tainted for Leonid. During his 26 years in the Soviet military Leonid was never promoted beyond the rank of lieutenant colonel. The reason? He was a Jew.

Finci-Viterbi Executive Director Stephen Smith leads one of seven panels in this unprecedented, public, international gathering of cultural leaders, scholars, and experts who will offer cutting-edge analysis and strategies; identify a landscape of possible initiatives and actions; and galvanize the community.

Felicia Galas Munn Brenner, who grew up in Łódź, Poland, remembers her parents, Abram Michel Galas and Hinda Dworja (nee Dobrzynska) Galas. Felicia, the middle child of seven, lost her whole family in the Holocaust. View Felicia’s full testimony.

USC Shoah Foundation mourns the passing of our friend and partner Eddie Jaku, who has passed away in Sydney, Australia, at age 101. Eddie will be remembered for his extraordinary life—which included surviving the Holocaust by escaping from four concentration camps—and for his relentless positivity and kindness to all.