Let's just say I throw my smartphone over the wall into the Warsaw ghetto. Along with it, I send instructions to make a video diary until the battery drains, then to wrap it in lots of newspaper before throwing it back.

The Center for Holocaust, Human Rights and Genocide Education (CHHANGE) is hosting its annual conference for Holocaust educators Friday, featuring USC Shoah Foundation executive director Stephen Smith as keynote speaker.

Jakub Mlynar works with USC Shoah Foundation across the world from the majority of its staff, but his enthusiasm can be felt all the way from the Czech Republic. Mlynar is the coordinator of the Malach Center for Visual History, a Visual History Archive access site located at Charles University in Prague. He is also its 2013 teaching fellow, preparing to teach a sociology course using the Visual History Archive next winter.

Ursula Bruce was only a child when her family fled Nazi Germany to South Africa in the 1930’s. When Ursula married and had her own family she became very involved in human rights and joined the Institute of Race Relations. Even Ursula’s son refused to join the South African military to protest the government’s racist policies. She reflects on her family’s relationship with Nelson Mandela, former South African president and anti-apartheid leader who died on December 5 2013. He was 95 years old.

Czech educators are gathering at the Academy of Sciences in Prague today to attend a conference dedicated to the "Ours or Foreign? Jews in the Czech 20th Century" project from the Jewish Museum of Prague.

United States army veteran Don Shimazu remembers the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor December 7 1941. He was a part of the ROTC (Reserve Officers' Training Corps) at the University of Hawaii and remembers being put on duty right away.  A Hawaiian native, he also reflects on the tension the attack created in his family, since his parents were Japanese citizens.

Sid Shachnow has two Silver Stars, three Bronze Stars and two Purple Hearts -- and that's just for his service in Vietnam, where he led his troops with courage and distinction. “There was no room for conscience,” he confides when discussing his 39 years of military service. “Once I was face to face with a Viet Cong. I had him in my sights as he ran toward me. He dropped his weapon and veered left. I did not pull the trigger. I still do not know if I did the right thing. My conscience got in the way.”

Barry Bruk speaks of the deteriorating living conditions in the Lódz ghetto, Poland, in late 1941. He remembers the deportation of thousands of Jews from the Lódz ghetto to the Kulmhof Death Camp in Chelmno, Poland, in January 1941 and relates that his sister, brother-in-law and young nephew were among those deported and killed in the camp.

Gussie Zaks recalls her arrival to Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in Germany. She remembers the horrible camp conditions and how many women in her camp did not survive.

Secondary school students across France are hard at work on their entries for the 2013-2014 National Contest on Resistance and Deportation – and many of them are drawing inspiration from USC Shoah Foundation’s Visual History Archive

 What started as a project for one student quickly turned into a labor of love for four of Clarissa Ngo’s creative writing pupils.

French educators are attending a Teaching with Testimony in the 21st Century workshop today and tomorrow to learn about IWitness and using testimony in the classroom.

Jan Karskiwas recognized as Righteous Among the Nations by Yad Vashem for risking his life in order to alert the world about the Holocaust. He remembers meeting award-winning French documentarian Claude Lanzmann, who interviewed Karski for his film Shoah, a nine and a half-hour documentary about the Holocaust.

Growing up, it wasn’t terribly unusual to see people in our house with telltale tattoos on their arms. We kids somehow knew what those blurry inked numbers meant, but we also knew it wasn’t polite to ask about them. And so, I never did. And honestly, no one in my family had been so marked — the people with tattoos were mostly friends of my grandparents — so it wasn’t something I had a lot of interest in hearing about. And perhaps in an effort to protect our innocence, family elders showed no interest in talking about it.

Alice Craig recalls her family’s deportation to Auschwitz. She remembers how her father prepared for the deportation by burying important family documents and how he knew that they wouldn’t be returning.

USC Shoah Foundation associate director of research Dan Leshem and former Institute Fellow Jeffrey Shandler will lead a seminar about video interviews of Holocaust survivors at the Association for Jewish Scholars (AJS) conference next week.

The testimonies in USC Shoah Foundation’s Visual History Archive are used all over the world to teach about history, tolerance and human rights. But now, Glenn Fox is using testimony of Holocaust survivors to learn about something else: gratitude.

Josef Feingold describes in Spanish, his decision for not boarding the ship “Struma” on December 12 1941, set to sail from Constanta, Romania, en route to British Mandate Palestine, for fear the ship was unsafe and too overcrowded for the journey. He relates that, with almost 800 refugees on board, the Struma reached Istanbul, Turkey but it was not allowed to land. Instead, it was anchored offshore thus forcing the passengers to stay on board for several weeks. The Struma was finally set adrift, but was torpedoed and it sank off the coast of Sile, Turkey, on February 24, 1942.

French film director Claude Lanzmann spoke candidly about his latest film, The Last of the Unjust, at a USC School of Cinematic Arts screening hosted by USC Shoah Foundation Tuesday night.

“Time heals all wounds,” they say. It’s difficult to find any other element in our daily lives that possesses the sobering effect that time does. It tames emotions and calms nerves. It allows for much needed reflection and analysis. And, perhaps most importantly, it brings with it resolution and closure. By any account, a century would be more than enough time to heal even the deepest wound, but, surprisingly, time’s impact isn’t always as thorough as we’d expect it to be.

 Madame Xia discusses her family's experiences on December 13, 1937, when Japanese forces entered Nanjing, China.

January 18, 2012: Resistance during the Holocaust is still mostly seen in terms of organized or armed group activities, yet this perspective overlooks individual acts of opposition. Up to now, the availability of sources for analyzing the behavior of German Jews has been limited. Historians used reports originated by the Nazi state and/or written post-war testimonies. In those sources individual acts of opposition barely emerge. However, a closer analysis of the micro level of Nazi society challenges the common image of German Jews as passive victims.

南加州大学与侵华日军南京大屠杀纪念馆合作扩展影像历史档案加利福尼亚洛杉矶 2013年12月13日  南加州大学纳粹屠犹基金会与侵华日军南京大屠杀遇难同胞纪念馆展开历史性的合作，为1937年南京大屠杀最后的幸存者保留证言。新的证言旨在构建起完整的个人生活史，包括他们在南京大屠杀之前和之后的社会文化生活。1937年12月13日，侵华日军占领了当时中国的首都南京，在近两个月时间内杀害了平民与大量解除武装的中国士兵达30万人以上。这些证言将为南京大屠杀历史增添新的视角与知识，并将于2014年2月归入美国南加州大学纳粹屠犹基金会下属的影像历史档案库。采访的程序是根据纳粹屠犹基金会在采集纳粹大屠杀幸存者证言以及采集柬埔寨和卢旺达大屠杀幸存者证言时所积累的经验。新采集的证言也将加入侵华日军南京大屠杀遇难同胞纪念馆已有的档案中。侵华日军南京大屠杀遇难同胞纪念馆与南加州大学纳粹屠犹基金会的合作项目超越了一般层面上对于南京大屠杀见证人的经历梳理、档案整理或是宣传报道，而是试图通过客观和规范的研究，深入到南京大屠杀见证人的生活状况、心理状态、历史意义和现实价值等层面，驳斥日本右翼势力对历史的歪曲和否定，引发学界、政界、商界和社会公众对该群体的关注，揭示创伤性记忆、悲剧文化、历史废墟对于文明进步的意义。