When Zuzanna Surowy needed to make herself cry as the lead actress in the Holocaust-era feature film My Name Is Sara, she followed the advice of her co-star to “put a demon inside of her” – to imagine something so tragic it would bring tears to her eyes.

It was much harder for Surowy, then 15, to follow the second half of that directive: to leave the demon on the set.

A public lecture by the 2022-2023 Interdisciplinary Research Week team
(Join us in person for this lecture or attend virtually on Zoom)

USC Shoah Foundation today presents the first of two events in Aspen, Colorado hosted by Melinda Goldrich, a prominent member of the Aspen philanthropic community who serves on USC Shoah Foundation’s Board of Councilors’ Executive Committee.

In recognition of its pioneering work advancing Holocaust and Genocide Studies since its inception in 2014, the USC Dornsife Center for Advanced Genocide Research has been awarded the honor of hosting the next biennial meeting of the International Network of Genocide Scholars (INoGS). The INoGS 9th International Conference on Genocide will take place in June 2024 at the University of Southern California, Los Angeles and coincide with the Center’s 10-year anniversary celebration.

USC Shoah Foundation today launches its 500th IWitness activity with release of In Lisa's Footsteps, a primary level IWalk based on Mona Golabek’s acclaimed The Children of Willesden Lane books.

In Lisa's Footsteps tells the story of Golabek’s mother, Lisa Jura, a young Holocaust survivor who in 1938 escaped from Vienna to London on the Kindertransport.

For the last year, six scholars from diverse fields have been collaborating in USC Shoah Foundation's inaugural Scholar Lab to address the question, “Why the Jews?” This fall, in a series of three events, scholars will discuss what they have learned and present individual research projects.  

Join us on January 18 as we take a deep dive into USC ShoahFoundation’s Visual History Archive, which is home to nearly 55,000 testimonies from survivors and witnesses of the Holocaust.

In this clip, Justus Rosenberg also recalls his impression of American journalist and rescuer Varian Fry.