USC Shoah Foundation will toast the humanitarian work of actor George Clooney at its Ambassadors for Humanity gala on Thursday, but it will also offer two unique showcases of its educational work in schools around the world.

Stephen Smith, executive director of USC Shoah Foundation, has been named the inaugural UNESCO Chair on Genocide Education.

Even after the Holocaust, other genocides and ethnic cleansings have occurred and still continue. Peter Wolfram reflects on the importance of tolerance to prevent such atrocities from happening, and so people around the world can one day live peacefully together.

On October 5th 1938 German law required all Jewish passports to be stamped with a large and red letter “J,” for Jude, Jew in German.  M. Austein remembers having to exchange his Austrian passport for a German passport with the letter, “J.”

We continue our 10-part Echoes and Reflections series with Lesson 4: The Ghettos.

The Jewish Museum in Prague recently debuted a new exhibit dedicated to the Nazi-produced films about the Terezin (Theresienstadt) concentration camp. The Visual History Archive is also a unique resource for Terezin remembrance.

Livia Bitton-Jackson remembers arriving to Auschwitz as a young girl with her mother and an aunt. Before they entered the camp Livia was stopped by infamous SS physician Josef Mengele.

George Clooney is well known as an actor, director, producer and writer. But it was his global humanitarian efforts that received the attention on Oct. 3 when he was honored with the Ambassador for Humanity Award by Steven Spielberg.

Lyndell Higgins wanted to teach people about the Holocaust. So, she started to dance. Higgins is the founding director of the Los Angeles-based Stretch Dance Company, which she created in 2010.  The company recently debuted its first full-length dance production, I Have Lived A Thousand Years, based on the popular memoir of Holocaust survivor Dr. Livia Bitton-Jackson. Bitton-Jackson’s testimony is in USC Shoah Foundation’s Visual History Archive.

USC Shoah Foundation’s associate director of research, Dan Leshem, participated in Cardozo School of Law’s Law and Film course taught by documentary filmmaker/historian Christian Delage on Sept. 29.

The creators of a transmedia novel that has captivated students around the world have entered into a partnership with USC Shoah Foundation’s Visual History Archive and educational website IWitness.

In October 1943 the Danish underground helped transport over 7,000 Danish Jews to Sweden. Esther Chalupovitsch remembers the night her family escaped Nazi controlled Denmark on a fishing boat to Sweden.

Even though they were surrounded by members of Hollywood elite and New York society, a group of teenagers seemed to steal the spotlight at the Oct. 3 Ambassadors for Humanity gala.

Holocaust and genocide experts and representatives from Holocaust organizations around the world are gathering in China this week for the 2013 Association of Holocaust Organizations (AHO) conference. USC Shoah Foundation’s director of education, Kori Street, will present a session called “Global Testimony-Based Education.”

Anita Hirsch recalls when an aid worker helped her escape the Brzesko ghetto in Poland. Anita remembers hiding from the Gestapo who knew that she had escaped.

As president of the Koret Foundation and chairman of Taube Philanthropies, Tad Taube has contributed millions to philanthropic causes around the world. But he says his dedication to USC Shoah Foundation is simply “a natural thing to do.” Taube and his parents fled Poland in 1939 and ultimately settled in Los Angeles. After getting his master’s in industrial engineering from Stanford, Taube was one of the creators of E-H Research Laboratories and began a career in real estate.

In October 1941 the Nazi’s started to transport Jews from Vienna to ghettos in Easter Europe. Regine Cohen remembers when she and her family were deported from their home in Vienna to a ghetto.

USC Shoah Foundation’s liaisons in Italy will give a presentation to Italian Parliament Oct. 16 to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the deportation of Roman Jews.

Abraham Bomba remembers arriving to the Treblinka extermination camp and the selection process for the gas chambers.

Thomas Blatt remembers his participation in the uprising that took place in the Sobibor death camp in Poland on October 14, 1943, and relates it was led by camp prisoners, Aleksandr (Sasha) Pechersky and Leon Feldhendler. He describes the mass escape of the camp prisoners as a result of the uprising.

We continue the 10-part Echoes and Reflections series with Lesson 5: The "Final Solution."

Join us for a panel discussion on the role of international institutions, NGOs and civil society in addressing and preventing mass atrocities, featuring USC Shoah Foundation Director of Education Kori Street and USC International Relations Professor Douglas Becker. USC Ronald Tutor Campus Center, Room 350 Contact: vhi-academic@dornsife.usc.edu  

A Conversation Between Professors Yehuda Bauer (Hebrew University, Emeritus) and Xu Xin (Nanjing University)Noted Holocaust scholar Professor Yehuda Bauer is Professor Emeritus of History and Holocaust Studies at the Avraham Harman Institute of Contemporary Jewry at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and Academic Advisor to Yad Vashem. Credited with widely expanding Holocaust education within Chinese academia, Professor Xu Xin is the Director of the Glazer Institute of Jewish Studies at Nanjing University, where he initiated the undergraduate and graduate Jewish Studies programs.

“Holocaust and Ethnic Cleansing in the North Caucasus, 1942-43” Lecture by Crispin Brooks (USC Shoah Foundation) Crispin Brooks, curator of USC Shoah Foundation's Visual History Archive, will present a paper that examines the parallels of Nazi and Soviet Mass Violence in the Karachai autonomous region, 1942-43. Sponsored by Shapell-Guerin Chair in Jewish Studies. USC Social Science Building, Room 250 Contact: vhi-academic@dornsife.usc.edu

Gerard Friedenfeld remembers when the Nazis occupied the Sudetenland. He was only a child when his father was arrested with groups of other men. Later the Nazis ordered all other Jewish women and children to leave their homes.

Watching testimony and participating in the Student Voices Film Contest helped Mariana Aguilar heal from an experience with racism.

Summary: 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:

A group of dedicated USC students is reviving the Shoah Foundation Institute Student Association (SFISA).

Giulia Spizzichino, who gave her testimony in Italian on March 25, 1998, speaks about the Ardeatine Caves Massacre that took place outside Rome on March 24, 1944. In one of the worst massacres in Italy during World War II, over 300 Italian men were shot, in retaliation for an attack on SS personnel by resistance fighters. The previous day, the Patriotic Action Group (Gruppi d'Azione Patriotica, or GAP) set off a bomb that killed 33 German soldiers marching on Via Rassella. Hitler made an order that within 24 hours, 10 Italians were to be shot for each dead German.

Board members, senior staff and other supporters of USC Shoah Foundation – The Institute for Visual History and Education are traveling throughout Hungary and Poland this week on the Institute’s mission to Eastern Europe.