In the Special Collections at the University of Southern California Libraries there is a book – large, heavy, and musty, it contains the names of thousands of Holocaust survivors who lived in the Pest region of Budapest, the capital city of Hungary, in 1947. (Holocaust Survivors of the Jewish Community of Pest register, Collection no. 6057, Special Collections, USC Libraries, University of Southern California)
cagr, op-eds / Friday, May 6, 2022
Barnabas Balint is a PhD candidate in History at Magdalen College, University of Oxford, UK and the 2021-2022 Breslauer, Rutman, and Anderson Research Fellow at the USC Dornsife Center for Advanced Genocide Research. Read more about him here. 
/ Friday, May 6, 2022
/ Friday, May 6, 2022
USC Shoah Foundation has added a tour of the Armenian Genocide Martyrs Monument in Montebello, California to its IWalk mobile application, making it the first Armenian Genocide site of memory to be featured on the innovative educational platform.
iwalk / Monday, May 9, 2022
An animated short film that brings to life the remarkable childhood journey of media personality, author and Holocaust survivor Dr. Ruth K. Westheimer netted one of the Atlanta Jewish Film Festival’s three coveted Audience Awards last month. Produced by USC Shoah Foundation and Delirio Films, Ruth: A Little Girl’s Big Journey traces Dr. Ruth’s escape from Nazi Germany during the Holocaust. The film was awarded the Atlanta Jewish Film Festival’s Best Short Film prize in early April.
/ Wednesday, May 11, 2022
The 2021-2022 William P. Lauder Junior Interns program wrapped up last month with special guest Jewish Holocaust survivor Dr. Elena Nightingale calling on participants to speak up when confronted by discrimination and injustice. “Young people's voices are listened to [and] have more power than you think. Don’t be a bystander,” the physician and human rights activist told the interns at the final session of the 10-week program. “Make your voices heard.”
/ Wednesday, May 11, 2022
Lacey manages higher education programs and partners closely with students, faculty, and other campus organizations.
/ Thursday, May 12, 2022
We mourn the loss of ten innocent lives in yet another mass shooting fueled by hate, this time at a supermarket in Buffalo, New York. According to authorities, the 18-year-old alleged shooter drove 200 miles to the supermarket in the predominantly African American neighborhood and livestreamed the attack.
/ Monday, May 16, 2022
"When I look up [to] the dome, and the flag, I choke up — every morning!" In honor of Jewish American Heritage Month, we salute Tom Lantos, a Hungarian Holocaust survivor who served in the United States House of Representatives from 1981-2008.     Watch Tom Lantos’ full testimony. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=grX4jkVJfPA  
homepage / Monday, May 16, 2022
Herbert Zipper, a Vienna-born conductor and composer, was imprisoned in Dachau in 1938 and 1939. He describes how prisoners found humanity in poetry and music.
/ Monday, May 23, 2022
Herbert Zipper, a world-renowned conductor, composer and pioneer of the community arts movement in the United States, grew up in a Vienna of extremes: From his birth in 1904 until he fled in 1939, the Austrian capital transformed from the heights of science and culture to the depths of economic depression and the onslaught of violent antisemitism and Nazi rule.
/ Monday, May 23, 2022
Alexa Dollar flings open her arms and spins across the stage, relishing the moment as if she’s just arrived at a party thrown in her honor. She kicks out her leg and flutters back across the floor, chasing the piano’s tantalizing lilt. Drew Lybolt comes next, taking over the stage with powerful leaps and commanding twirls set to an insistent, almost argumentative, piano vignette.
/ Monday, May 23, 2022
USC Shoah Foundation’s interactive IWalk mobile app has been named a finalist in the Cool Tool Mobile App Solution category in the 2022 EdTech Awards, the world's largest recognition program for education technology.
iwalk / Wednesday, May 25, 2022
Steve Acre was 9 years old during the Farhud, a Nazi-inspired pogrom in Baghdad in June, 1941. He recalls the Muslim neighbor who protected his family.
/ Tuesday, May 31, 2022
Ruth Pearl was six years old during the Farhud, a Nazi-inspired pogrom in Baghdad in June, 1941. She recalls her family's scramble to safety.
/ Tuesday, May 31, 2022
Elizabeth Spitz's father was a member of the Jewish Council in Satu Mare. On Shavuot 1944, he undertook an operation to provide challah to all the residents.
/ Tuesday, May 31, 2022
Hundreds of survivors of the 1994 Rwandan Genocide against the Tutsi congregated in Salt Lake City over the weekend for the largest-ever international gathering of survivors. Organizers say the event, hosted by IBUKA-USA and supported by a number of organizations including USC Shoah Foundation, was a safe space for survivors to discuss issues including bringing genocide perpetrators to justice, preserving the memory of victims, and fighting against revisionism.
rwanda, GAM / Tuesday, May 31, 2022
"Research With Testimonies: Featuring the Center's 2021 Lev Student Research Fellows” Nicholas Bredie (USC PhD candidate in Literature and Creative Writing) and Atharva Tewari (USC undergraduate student, Global Studies and Journalism major) 2021 Beth and Arthur Lev Student Research Fellow  April 12, 2022
cagr / Tuesday, May 31, 2022
As a novelist, I am fascinated by decisions. Choice, real or imagined, is what separates tragedy from mythology. Decisions, always made with incomplete understanding, shape the arc of lives and narrative.
cagr, op-eds / Tuesday, May 31, 2022
Nicholas Bredie is the 2021 Beth and Arthur Lev Student Research Fellow at the USC Dornsife Center for Advanced Genocide Research and a PhD candidate in the Department of Literature and Creative Writing at USC. He is the author of Not Constantinople (Dzanc Books), a novel based on his three years living in Istanbul, Turkey. The book was named one of the best of 2017 by The Morning News and received praise from Viet Thanh Nguyen, T. C. Boyle, Paul La Farge, and Aimee Bender.
/ Friday, June 3, 2022
USC Shoah Foundation has partnered with a group of scholars from the Hebrew University in Jerusalem to provide them with 1,000 transcripts from the Visual History Archive for a study that will analyze Holocaust survivor testimonies.
research / Monday, June 6, 2022
USC Shoah Foundation–the Institute for Visual History and Education (USC Shoah Foundation) on Wednesday welcomed Second Gentleman Douglas Emhoff to the Institute’s global headquarters on the campus of the University of Southern California.  
/ Friday, June 10, 2022
Amidst escalating attacks against Ukraine’s second largest city, a global team of experts worked quickly to preserve and authenticate a complex evidence base. Using photos, video, web scraping, sourced from social media and messaging platforms, engineers and lawyers worked together to produce an unbroken chain of evidence on the decentralized web.
/ Friday, June 10, 2022
June 8, 2022, Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff visited USC Shoah Foundation and learned about our Dimension in Testimony program. While there, he got the opportunity to engage with Pinchas Gutter’s interactive biography as well as talk to the real Pinchas via Zoom. Elex Michaelson of KTTV Fox News 11 interviewed the Second Gentleman during his visit. Read more about Doug Emhoff's visit.
/ Tuesday, June 14, 2022
USC Shoah Foundation is bringing The Willesden Project educational initiative to a group of 500 Ukrainian refugees and other guests in Warsaw, Poland this weekend. The event will also feature a musical performance by USC Shoah Foundation partner and celebrated pianist Mona Golabek.
/ Thursday, June 16, 2022
The Los Angeles premiere event will take place at the Museum of Tolerance at the Simon Wiesenthal Center in partnership with USC Shoah Foundation, Museum of Tolerance, and Holocaust Museum LA.
/ Monday, June 27, 2022
The New York premiere event will take place in Safra Hall at the Museum of Jewish Heritage on Tuesday, July 12, in partnership with USC Shoah Foundation.
/ Monday, June 27, 2022
"It’s very important that the Swedish Holocaust Museum is one of Sweden’s National Historical Museums. We believe the Holocaust is not a Jewish concern, but that it is, and must be, a universal one." Lizzie Oved Scheja (pictured above, full interview below), founder and director of J! Jewish Culture in Sweden, speaking earlier this month after Swedish Minister of Culture Jeanette Gustafsdotter inaugurated the country’s first museum dedicated to preserving and perpetuating the memory of the Holocaust.
DiT / Tuesday, June 28, 2022
On a Wednesday morning in New York in the fall of 2021, Rabbi Nicole Auerbach greeted Walter and Phyllis Loeb in Central Synagogue’s majestic sanctuary. She led them through the arch-lined nave, past row after row of pews, beyond the six sets of capital columns wrapped in colorful, gold-accented reliefs, all the way up to the intricately carved Mahagony bima, the stage where the synagogue’s rabbi and cantor preside over Shabbat and holiday services.
/ Wednesday, June 29, 2022

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