For the last three days, a dozen teachers came together to advance their skills in IWitness as part of the first-ever IWitness Teaching Fellowship.

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.  Description:

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.  Description:

Educators from across the United States are convening at Anti-Defamation League headquarters in New York City today through Friday for an in-depth training on the resources of Echoes and Reflections.

Judith Becker describes how her brother was able to still attend a public high school because of his athleticism despite the implementation of the Nuremberg Laws. She also reflects on how the Nazi ideology was taught on a daily basis in German schools.

Educators gave hundreds of presentations on behalf of USC Shoah Foundation during the 2014-2015 fiscal year, introducing thousands of teachers and members of the public to testimony and IWitness.

I first met Sir Nicholas Winton when he had reached the mere age of 87.  He was curious to learn about the UK Holocaust Centre, which our family had opened in Nottinghamshire.  Winton was intrigued to learn that a non-Jewish family established the center, which resonated with his own ethics, as a Holocaust rescuer who saved 669 Jewish children by organizing the Czechoslovakian Kindertransport.

Ludmila Page recalls how fellow female prisoners in Auschwitz practiced their religion by praying. She says how inspiring it was for these young women to have faith amongst such horror.  

After learning the methodology of teaching with testimony and creating new lessons last year, the 2014 cohort of Teaching with Testimony in the 21st Century in Hungary returned for their follow-up session to share what they have learned.

Peter Cukor describes returning to his family home Hungary and reuniting with his father after being liberated from a concentration camp in Czechoslovakia. He also recalls how he faced anti-Semitism even after liberation in 1945.

Henny Bauer describes how Jews in Vienna were forced scrub the streets and Nazi officers’ homes. She explains her response to an SS officer when she was ordered to complete the discriminating task.

Echoes and Reflections inspired Julia Wood's class to make a big effort to promote awareness of the Holocaust in their community.At East Valley Academy in Mesa, Ariz., Wood uses the 10 modules of Echoes and Reflections, which each includes primary sources and testimony clips, to teach about the Holocaust. She attended an Echoes and Reflections educator seminar last summer and said it was “phenomenal,” and even inspired her to teach a semester-long Holocaust literature elective.

USC Shoah Foundation’s ITS department is one month into a yearlong project that will ultimately change the way universities access the Visual History Archive.

Almost twice as many people watched testimony across all of USC Shoah Foundation’s platforms and programs this year compared to the 2013-2014 fiscal year.

The 2015 Teaching with Testimony in the 21st Century program in Hungary has finally begun after the most competitive application process in the history of the program.

Gabriel Forrai remembers the anti-Jewish restrictions implemented in Budapest, Hungary including his family being forced to live a yellow star house, curfews and wearing a yellow star on his clothing.  

Renowned Holocaust scholar and former USC Shoah Foundation Yom HaShoah Scholar Professor Yehuda Bauer has given his testimony to USC Shoah Foundation’s Visual History Archive.

Siegmund Sollander reflects on life in the Shanghai ghetto, designated by Japanese authorities in Shanghai to house stateless Jewish refugees who fled Germany and German-occupied areas of Europe from 1937-1942.

George Auman escaped Nazi Germany in the late 1930’s and immigrated to the United States. He later joined the military and helped liberate Nordhausen concentration camp. Auman describes the importance of learning from the Holocaust and speaking about his experience.

Jonathan Friedman’s class at West Chester University in Pennsylvania is nearly finished with the culminating project of their study of the Holocaust in film: a documentary they constructed in IWitness.Friedman, who is currently Professor and Director of Holocaust and Genocide Studies at West Chester University, first learned of IWitness at the Association for Holocaust Organizations (AHO)’s annual conference in January 2015 at USC. He also served as a consulting historian at USC Shoah Foundation, then-titled Survivors of the Shoah Visual History Foundation, from 1997-2000.

Teachers in Texas can register to attend Dallas Holocaust Museum’s Holocaust and Human Rights Educator Conference Aug. 3 and 4.

Zsuzsanna Ozsvath Abonyi and her husband immigrated to Texas from Hungary after WWII.  Zsuzsanna’s husband received a teaching position at a Texas university and she continues to reflect on her own career including a Ph.D

Junior Intern Ruth Hernadez says the trip to Poland continues to motivate her to seek justice for people in need.

Read in EnglishTess Gagnage a entrepris d’une étude fascinante sur la participation polonaise à la persécution des Juifs avant et au cours de l’Holocauste.Gagnage est en master 1 d’histoire contemporaine à l’Ecole normale supérieure de Lyon, qui, en 2014, est devenue le premier site de consultation en France de la collection des témoignages de l’USC Shoah Foundation. Ayant entendu parler de ce fonds par Emmanuel Debono, le représentant en France de la fondation, Gagnage a décidé de l’intégrer dans son étude.

Lire en françaisTess Gagnage has embarked on a fascinating study of Polish persecution of Jews before and during the Holocaust through the lens of French-language survivor testimony in the Visual History Archive.Gagnage is a master’s candidate in contemporary history at ENS Lyon, which became the first Visual History Archive full access site in France in 2014. Through the Institute’s French liaison Emmanuel Debono, Gagnage learned of the Visual History Archive and decided to conduct her own study of the testimonies.

Alter Abramowicz describes anti-Semitic attitudes in Poland leading up to the Holocaust.

USC Shoah Foundation’s first Texas A&M Teaching Fellow Adam R. Seipp got to do something he doesn’t often get the opportunity to do: work uninterrupted in the Visual History Archive and fully focus on his passion for testimony for a whole week.

Zvi Griliches describes his liberation on May 2, 1945. He and other prisoners were on a death march from Dachau when the SS guards abandoned them. American troops discovered them on the road a few hours later.

Stella Kolin describes the beginning of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising and conditions inside the bunker where she and 50 others hid during the fighting.

The fourth cohort of Teaching with Testimony in the 21st Century in Poland met last week for their initial training on using testimony in their classrooms.