Alex Paiva Jr is a programmer helping build the Dimension in Testimony platform by using AI services to allow for an interactive experience with testimonies from survivor. Previously in his career Alex has worked on building and implementing enterprise level applications. He received a BS in Computer Engineering degree from California State University Northridge. 

Larina Palacpac supports the financial management of the Institute by assisting in account reconciliation, budget development and financial reporting. Prior to joining USC Shoah Foundation, Larina worked as a Budget/Business Technician at the USC Dornsife Business Office for six years where she was responsible for processing procurement orders and reimbursement requests for a high-volume research intensive department. She received her bachelor’s degree in Business Administration with an emphasis in Marketing from the University of Southern California.

Each year, the USC Shoah Foundation Center for Advanced Genocide Research hosts an interdisciplinary team of scholars from different universities and different countries for one week so that they can develop and discuss a collaborative innovative research project in the field of Holocaust and Genocide

 

Survivors and their testimonies have been central to Holocaust research and memorial culture. Even before the end of the Shoah, survivor historians in parts of Eastern Europe liberated from Nazi occupation collected testimonies and conducted interviews with fellow survivors.

USC Shoah Foundation Center for Advanced Genocide Research cosponsors this lecture, which is part of the Fall 2019 Hebrew Union College-USC Casden Institute Faculty and Graduate Student Research Seminar.

This lecture offers an examination of pro-state paramilitary violence in the Syrian conflict. It analyzes the emergence and transformation of pro-state paramilitarism in Syria in the context of the uprising and civil war. It focuses on the Syrian government’s deployment of the Shabbiha (later renamed ‘National Defense Forces’), irregular paramilitaries dressed in civilian gear and committing a broad spectrum of violence, including torture, kidnapping, assassination, sexual violence, and a string of massacres across the country.

Alan Auyeung oversees the collection, management and transfer area of broadcast video equipment; administers educational, instructional and reference materials collections; and provides services for patrons including ensuring requests for distribution copies of the archive are fulfilled.  Prior to joining USC, Alan worked at a Los-Angeles area post-production technical support service provider for 20 years as an Electronic Technician, with experiences in post-production systems and equipment repair, maintenance, and troubleshooting.

The “comfort women” issue is perhaps Japan’s most contentious present-day diplomatic quandary.  Inside Japan, the issue is dividing the country across clear ideological lines. Supporters and detractors of “comfort women” are caught in a relentless battle over empirical evidence, the validity of oral testimony, the number of victims, the meaning of sexual slavery, and the definition of coercive recruitment. Credibility, legitimacy and influence serve as the rallying cry for all those involved in the battle.

Ita is a cataloguer and indexer of Holocaust survivors testimonies. She also worked as a translator. She is fluent in Portuguese and Spanish, as well as conversant in Yiddish. Ita Gordon trained interviewers in Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo, Brazil; she trains and mentors prospective cataloguers and indexers. Representing the Institute, Ita reached out to community leaders in South America, especially in Brazil, during the early phase of collecting survivor testimony.

WHY ATTEND THIS PROGRAM? Philadelphia is home to the new Horwitz-Wasserman Holocaust Memorial Plaza. The Memorial Plaza features USC Shoah Foundation’s IWalk app that guides visitors through the interpretive elements of the Memorial Plaza with background information and personal testimonies of Holocaust survivors and other witnesses. To support educators’ integration of this innovative resource, the Philadelphia Holocaust Remembrance Foundation and USC Shoah Foundation have partnered with ADL to provide professional development to educators in the Philadelphia area.

A public lecture by Anna Lee (USC undergraduate, English major, Spanish and TESOL minor) 2019 Beth and Arthur Lev Student Research Fellow  Deaths by guns is not unique anymore in American contemporary culture. And mass executions by guns were prevalent during the Holocaust and the Rwandan genocide. In America today, mass shootings, particularly in schools, have caused devastation.

Hoan Tran oversees the data archival and storage infrastructure for the Institute’s content. Hoan has experiences in software dev-ops, systems engineering, system administration, and information systems security.

In an effort to spark a social movement against hatred in all forms, USC Shoah Foundation, established by Steven Spielberg after his experience filming “Schindler’s List”— which gave voice to survivors and witnesses of the Holocaust and other genocides through  education and action – and Discovery Education, today announced the Teaching with Testimony 2019 Stronger Than Hate Challenge winners.

Early this year, when the Swedish History Museum opened its exhibit about the Holocaust – an exhibit that includes USC Shoah Foundation testimonies and some of its interactive biographies – it marked the state-funded museum’s first foray into the topic. The exhibit has been a major success, say two Swedish museum professionals who played a prominent role in the installation, and who came to USC Shoah Foundation’s headquarters in Los Angeles last week to discuss taking the partnership to the next level.

Painter David Kassan has sat with survivors of the Holocaust for countless hours during the past five years, carefully listening to their stories of pain, grief, resilience and quiet victory.

Jewish track-and-field athlete Margaret Lambert remembers the pressure she felt when competing in the Adolf Hitler Stadium during the 1936 Olympic tryouts for a non-Jewish audience that objected to her presence. Maria Breitinger had her decathelon medal denied by her antisemitic school principal. Jules Forgacs remembers his first soccer match after liberation.

We are saddened to hear of the recent passing of Jack Welner, who survived a Jewish ghetto in Poland, a labor camp near the Dachau concentration camp in Germany, and the Auschwitz Nazi death camp in Poland – where his mother was murdered on arrival – before immigrating to Denver, Colorado, where he began a new life. He was 98. When Welner gave his testimony to USC Shoah Foundation in 1995, it changed his life.

The Institute for Visual History and Education introduces its first-ever testimony-based podcast, We Share the Same Sky. In a seven-episode arc, We Share the Same Sky presents an intimate portrait of Rachael Cerrotti’s family history and her own personal journey of love and loss as she retraces the steps of her grandmother, Hana Seckel-Drucker, who was displaced across Europe during and in the wake of World War II.