L’édition 2013-2014 du Concours national de la Résistance et de la Déportation propose aux élèves des collèges et lycées de réfléchir sur le thème de « la libération du territoire et le retour à la République ». Afin de nourrir la réflexion des candidats, nous  leur proposons de visionner une série de témoignages.

On the night of Sidney Bratt’s interview his family was celebrating Hanukkah. He recites the Hanukkah candles blessings from the Jewish prayer book (Siddur) which once belonged to his mother, and is surrounded by his wife and grandchildren while doing so.

Students will interact with the stories of Holocaust survivors who immigrated to America in the newest IWitness activity, “New Beginnings – Journey to America,” published today.

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.