Hela Goldstein’s testimony given to the British Film and Photographic Unit on April 24, 1945 is believed to be the first-ever audio-visual testimony given by a Holocaust survivor. As a 22-year old victim, she spoke from Bergen-Belsen, the Nazi concentration camp where she was imprisoned upon liberation. Standing at the foot of a mass grave with her killers before her, Hela recounted what she experienced. By telling her story in the face of death, she became a foremother of testimony.

USC Shoah Foundation has added 132 testimonies to its Visual History Archive. These firsthand accounts of mass atrocities spanning more than 100 years are now available to researchers, educators, family members, and the public.

Join author Judy Batalion, in conversation with Nancy Spielberg, to learn more about Batalion's new book The Light of Days: The Untold Story of Women Resistance Fighters in Hitler’s Ghettos.

The Academy Award®-winning feature documentary film shares the remarkable stories of five people ­– a grandmother, a teacher, a businessman, an artist, and a U.S. congressman – as they return from the United States to their hometowns and to the ghettos and concentration camps that once imprisoned them. The film is currently available on Netflix and Blu-ray.

This Zoom mini-conference will feature brief talks on women rescuers and resisters in daily life, in ghettos and forests, and in camps, including women professionals, partisans and women in other genocides.

A distinguished voice of history has been lost today in the passing of Auschwitz survivor Roman Kent, who captured the agony of the Holocaust and the power of love in his telling of a simple story about his childhood dog, Lala. Kent was 92.

With an opening message from Finci-Viterbi Executive Director Stephen Smith, musicologist Francesco Lotoro and actor and playwright Ali Viterbi discuss Jewish composers of World War II.

USC Shoah Foundation’s Next Generation Council invites you to revisit the Academy Award®-winning documentary film The Last Days in conjunction with the 2021 remaster and debut on Blu-ray and Netflix.

In this excerpt from his interview for the Testimony on Location project, Holocaust survivor Ed Mosberg explains why it is important for him to record his testimony for future generations.

In this April 21, 2021, lecture, Alan Rosen considers the special manner of witness found in Holocaust-era calendars composed in ghettos, in camps, and in hiding. The event was organized by USC Shoah Foundation and cosponsored by the USC Casden Institute for the Study of the Jewish Role in American Life.

Fifteen hours of interviews related to a group of World War II-era diplomats who defied official policies to save hundreds of thousands of people from the Holocaust are to be integrated into the USC Shoah Foundation’s Visual History Archive.

USC Shoah Foundation and Mona Golabek had an end-of-school-year gift for Zoomed-out teachers: a 30-minute, all-inclusive concert/history lesson/social-emotional learning tutorial with messages about learning from history, rising from injustice and overcoming adversity.

On the day that Faye Schulman’s parents and siblings were killed, along with almost all the Jews of her Eastern Polish town of Lenin, Schulman (then Faigel Lazebnik) was pulled aside by a Nazi officer. The Nazi official had been to Schulman’s studio a few weeks previously. After invading the town in 1942, the Nazis had ordered the talented young photographer to take photographs—both to document their activities in the town and to provide their officers with vanity portraits. Schulman remembered the photo session with the Nazi who now pulled her aside.

Anna Heilman and a group of young women smuggled gunpowder to blow up an Auschwitz crematorium. Some of them were caught. Their story lives on in Anna’s testimony.

A sizzle reel in support of our virtual event Judy Batalion: The Jewish "Ghetto Girls" Who Fought the Nazis where Judy Batalion discusses her book The Light of Days: The Untold Story of Women Resistance Fighters in Hitler’s Ghettos.

Vladka remembers the founding of the F.P.O. (United Partisan Organization).

Eva Heymann, Holocaust survivor and Catholic nun, describes her experience working with the gay community through her AIDS work and how that exposure enabled her to understand her own sexuality in a more complex way than what she was taught in the Catholic Church.

Dances of the Holocaust, the We Are THE TREE OF LIFE program that was originally scheduled for May 25, has officially been rescheduled for Wednesday, June 23 at 11:00 am PT.

The featured panelists will explore the origin and idea behind the day, how survivors are being cared for, and the importance of the survivors and their legacy for the Jewish People and the world.

President Joe Biden on Thursday signed legislation into law establishing June 19 as Juneteenth National Independence Day—a US federal holiday commemorating the end of slavery in the United States. USC will host an online event on June 19 to commemorate Juneteenth and celebrate Black heritage through student tributes, artistic performances and various speakers.

The Institute congratulates Lesley Stahl and her 60 Minutes team for winning a 2021 Gracie Award for their segment “Talking to the Past,” which focused on Dimensions in Testimony and featured live as well as virtual interviews with Holocaust survivors, including Pinchas Gutter, Eva Kor, Aaron Elster and Max Eisen.

A magical family event that brings the Holocaust survivor Lisa Jura's story to life for a new generation of young readers. Join Lisa’s daughter, acclaimed concert pianist and author Mona Golabek, for a special storytelling film based on her new children’s book, Hold on to Your Music: The Inspiring True Story of the Children of Willesden Lane.

USC Shoah Foundation mourns the passing of Fritzie Fritzshall, president of the Illinois Holocaust Museum & Education Center, whose story of survival and will to share it has inspired thousands of people. She was 91. Always hopeful and optimistic, Fritzie’s understanding of where hate and intolerance can lead if left unchecked has driven her her whole life to educate and empower everyone she meets. She will be dearly missed.

A group of 30 second-grade children in New York City took part in a Tour for Tolerance event earlier this month that featured a virtual read-along given by famed broadcaster and Holocaust survivor Dr. Ruth Westheimer. Delivered virtually to students at the Glenn Morris School (PS100) in Queens, New York, the program was a pilot initiative of Tour for Tolerance and USC Shoah Foundation.

Actor, director, filmmaker and advocate Yuval David has a weapon of choice he employs to attract audiences and disarm would-be haters: a positive embrace of his story and a persistent belief in humanity.

Paul Rukesha, who was 16 yeas old during the Genocide Against the Tutsi in Rwanda, describes the day he was saved by soldiers of the Rwandan Patriotic Army.