Henry describes his flight from Berlin, Germany, to Shanghai, China, in summer 1940 and recalls the family members he left behind.

Gert expresses his gratitude towards Chinese people and emphasizes that Shanghai served his family as a place of refuge during the war.

Stefan speaks of his arrest by the Gestapo in his place of birth, Torun, Poland. Stefan relates how he was interrogated, brutally beaten and subsequently imprisoned as a result of an intimate letter he wrote to an Austrian soldier in German uniform. View his entire testimony at http://vhaonline.usc.edu/login.aspx  

A key USC Shoah Foundation partner’s mission of upgrading public school access to broadband Internet has earned a boost from President Obama. The nonprofit organization EducationSuperHighway works to ensure that every K-12 school in the nation has the necessary capacity to fully leverage the possibilities offered by digital education and online learning. EducationSuperHighway’s advocacy was instrumental in the president’s announcement of ConnectED, an initiative to connect 99 percent of U.S. students to high-speed Internet within the next five years.

Survivors who found refuge in Shanghai and other cities in China during the Holocaust express their feelings toward, and opinions about, China and the Chinese people. They describe the living conditions in China during World War II and the relations between the Jewish refugees and the local population.

USC Shoah Foundation and the Armenian Film Foundation have announced a new joint goal: By the 100th anniversary of the Armenian genocide in 2015, they will integrate into the USC Shoah Foundation’s Visual History Archive the more than 400 interviews of survivors of the genocide that were filmed by the late Dr. J.

In Soviet-occupied Dubienka, Poland, located by the Bug River and on the border with Ukraine, Sam Szor remembers the military fortification by German armed forces in anticipation of the upcoming invasion of the Soviet Union. He describes the invasion, which took place in the dawn of the morning hours of June 22, 1941. It was his birthday. He recalls the retreat of the Soviet armed forces and the resulting fear felt by the Jewish population with the German occupation of Dubienka.

Over 17,000 Jews found refuge in Shanghai, China during World War II. In this section, interviewees talk about the process of adopting and adjusting to the cultural traits and social patterns in the new country and detail their daily life in China. They describe the living conditions and explain how they were able to maintain their Jewish identity while in Shanghai and in the Hongkew Ghetto, established by the occupying Japanese authorities in 1943.  Jewish as well as secular education, and involvement in the youth Zionist organizations are discussed.  

On July 7, 1937, the Japanese attack Wanping on the outskirts of Beijing, and the second Sino-Japanese War begins. The Japanese quickly take Beijing and capture Tianjin (Tientsin). Savage fighting breaks out in Shanghai on August 13, which falls to Japan by late December. Initially, Japan continues a policy of open immigration to Shanghai. The November Pogrom (November 9, 1938) in Germany dramatically increases the number of German Jews entering Shanghai. Over 1,500 refugees arrive by the end of December 1938, and the number reaches 4,000 three months later.

During World War II, China was divided into three occupation zones among the Communist (CCP) forces led by Mao Tse-tung based in the north, the Nationalist (Kuomintang, KMT) forces led by Chiang Kai-shek based in the west, and the Japanese armed forces along the eastern seaboard. When the U.S. enters World War II on December 8, 1941, the United States becomes an ally of China.

On February 18, 1943, as a result of German pressure, Japanese authorities established a ghetto in the Hongkew neighborhood of Shanghai for stateless Jewish refugees who had arrived in Shanghai from Germany and German-occupied areas of Europe from 1937-1942. Kanoh Ghoya was a Japanese official responsible for giving monthly passes to Jewish refugees living in the Hongkew ghetto in Shanghai, China during World War II. Ghoya was also known as the "King of the Jews" and was infamous for his inhumane treatment of ghetto inhabitants.

When the Japanese surrender on September 2, 1945, there are 25,000 to 30,000 Jews in China, 17,000 of them in Shanghai. The Shanghai ghetto is only opened with the arrival of an American goodwill mission on September 3, 1945. Communists and Nationalists race to establish positions in Japanese-occupied areas of China. During 1945-1947, Manchuria is under Soviet occupation, and Jewish community leaders of Harbin are arrested and sent to the Soviet interior. Chinese Nationalists and Communists sign a truce on January 10, 1946.

Testimonies of survivors and witnesses of the 1994 Rwandan Tutsi Genocide added to USC Shoah Foundation’s Visual History Archive have resulted in 500 new search terms for the archive’s indexing system. The index is a controlled vocabulary of more than 50,000 terms that make up the Shoah Foundation’s Thesaurus and that allow detailed searching of the testimonies in the archive.

You’re invited to the USC Shoah Foundation! Free and open to the public, our monthly tours give visitors 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.

June 18 saw the U.S. premiere of a set of piano variations on a Polish patriotic theme composed in the Dachau concentration camp by prisoner of war Leon Kaczmarek (1903–1973). Kaczmarek’s composition was performed by 17-year-old pianist Nicholas Biniaz-Harris, winner of the National Symphony Orchestra’s 2013 Young Soloists’ Competition.

Winter seminar focuses on future of survivor testimonyRepresentatives from more than 30 Holocaust museums and centers in the United States and Canada came to Los Angeles this week for the 2013 Association of Holocaust Organizations (AHO) Winter Seminar, hosted for the first time by USC Shoah Foundation – The Institute for Visual History and Education.

The inaugural meeting of the Rwandan Peace Education Program brought together survivors of the Rwandan Tutsi Genocide and the Holocaust, along with other activists from around the world.