In Nazi Germany, the medical field was part of the larger effort to dehumanize anyone who did not conform to the idea of a “healthy German nation.” Dr. Sabine Hildebrandt, who teaches the history of anatomy at Harvard Medical School, scrutinizes the biographies of medical professionals during the Nazi era and restores the histories of victims subjected to coercive medical experimentation both before and after death. Dr. Hildebrandt also considers the legacies of this history for the present, including how to ethically approach work with human remains in historical collections at universities, museums, and historical institutions.

Shown at Witness for the Future: Holocaust Memory in a Post-Survivor World at the U.S. Embassy in Berlin on May 6, 2024. 

Dr. Justyna Matkowska, postdoctoral researcher at the Adam Mickiewicz University of Poland and adjunct faculty at SUNY, will uncover the stories and struggles of the Roma and Sinti people during World War II, bringing new perspectives to this lesser-known aspect of Holocaust history and informing modern approaches to remembrance

Dr. Milovan Pisarri, research fellow at Belgrade University, lectures on the mechanisms that led to the Roma Genocide in southeastern Europe, the history of anti-Roma racism, and the reasons behind the general lack of interest in the topic.

With anti-Jewish rhetoric and violence on the rise around the world, the USC Shoah Foundation this fall launches the Daniel and Marisa Klass USC Shoah Foundation Lecture Series, focusing this year on Antisemitism where leading scholars will guide audiences through the latest research and explore a diversity of approaches to understanding and combating the current upsurge.

Thursday, February 22, 2024 at 1:00 PM PT | 4:00 PM ET

Dr. Anna Hájková, pioneer of queer Holocaust history, will discuss why including queer narratives is crucial to developing a deeper understanding of Nazi persecution and societal resistance.

“Recovering Victims’ Voices,” a lecture series on marginalized victims of the Holocaust, highlights new and emerging scholarship on often un- or underexplored victims of Nazi persecution. The series shows how historical identity-based hate influences contemporary discourse about race, gender, sexuality, and disabilities.

Florian Zabransky seeks to excavate the particular intimate experience of male Jews, including how are queer relations narrated in the interviews.

Theodore Zev Weiss Holocaust Educational Foundation Professor at Northwestern University Peter Hayes examines antisemitism and homophobia as central components of Nazi racism.

At the close of World War II, the Allies labeled survivors of the Holocaust as either displaced persons (DPs), refugees, or stateless persons. These categories included Jews, prisoners of war, Roma and Sinti, forced laborers, and perpetrators who used the chaos to hide their identity. But as the scale of the humanitarian disaster became more apparent, the Allies were forced to refine these designations. Christina Wirth, the USC Shoah Foundation's inaugural Robert J. Katz Fellow in Antisemitism Studies, explores postwar sorting processes and the roles officials and humanitarian organizations played in shaping these categories. She further examines how antisemitism contributed to the establishment of a "Jewish DP" subcategory.

“Being together with Dita - We did it together. [...] Neither of us would have survived without the other, and we both realize that.”⠀⠀ Margot Heuman was born in Hellenthal, Germany in 1929. In 1942, she and her family were sent to Theresienstadt ghetto, where Margot and her sister were put into a youth home. ⠀

In the aftermath of the October 7 Hamas terrorist attacks in southern Israel, the USC Shoah Foundation and Tablet Studios announced a partnership to collect, archive, and make available testimonies of survivors, bereaved family members, and rescuers who risked their lives to save others during the assault.

Dr. Shira Klein is Associate Professor, Chair, Department of History at Wilkinson College at Chapman University. Dr. Klein focuses on Italian Jewry, Jewish migration, and the Holocaust. Her book, Italy’s Jews from Emancipation to Fascism (Cambridge University Press, 2018), was selected as finalist for the 2018 National Jewish Book Award. Her next book project will examine Italian Jews’ participation in Italy’s African empire from the 1890s to World War II, including their ties to indigenous Jews in Libya and Ethiopia.  

Dr. Anna Hájková, a scholar of Jewish Holocaust history and pioneer of queer Holocaust history, discusses why including queer perspectives helps us develop a more inclusive history of the Holocaust.

On January 23, 2002, Ruth Pearl dreamt that her son, Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl, was scared and in trouble. In her dream, she told him she would bring him tea and take care of him. She woke up in a panic and sent an email to Daniel, who was on assignment in Karachi, Pakistan. “I said, ‘Danny, this is a dream that I had. Please humor me and answer this email immediately.’ He never did,” Ruth said in an interview with the USC Shoah Foundation in 2014.

Warren Rosenblum, Professor of History at Webster University, St. Louis, will discuss his research on the history of disability during both the Weimar Republic and Third Reich. He will further explore how Nazi conspiratorial theories about antisemitism and persons with disabilities are linked through fear of the “other."

Jaclyn Singer has a lifelong passion for Judaism, Israel and community-building. She holds a bachelor's degree in social science from San Diego State University and a master's in security and diplomacy from Tel Aviv University.

Harold is a South Carolina State University graduate with a B.A. in Political Science.

Rachel Herman is the Program Platforms Lead of the USC Shoah Foundation. In this role, Rachel manages IWitness, the Visual History Archive, SFI Access, Echoes & Reflections and the building of in-app and Virtual IWalks. Rachel joined the Institute in 2017, working as a content specialist with the Education team.

Sam Gustman has been chief technology officer (CTO) of the Shoah Foundation since 1994. Gustman is also associate dean and CTO at the USC Libraries where he oversees IT for the Libraries and started the USC Digital Repository.

The USC Shoah Foundation mourns the passing of Dr. Abner Delman, a cardiologist and longtime supporter of the USC Shoah Foundation. He was 93. Abner's wife, Ilse-Lore Delman, was a Holocaust survivor who fled her hometown to escape Nazi persecution at a young age. She spent three years in hiding. In 1998, Ilse recorded her testimony with the USC Shoah Foundation, and soon after, the couple became involved with the organization.

Trained as a historian of modern Europe in USC’s History Department, Clark comes to the Shoah Foundation from MIT, where she has been the Faculty Director of MIT’s Programs in the Digital Humanities.

USC Shoah Foundation is dedicated to making audio-visual interviews with witnesses of the Holocaust and other genocides a compelling voice for education and action. The Institute currently has over 56,669 testimonies recorded in 45 languages in 65 countries that allow us to see the faces and hear the voices of those who witnessed history, allowing them to teach, to memorialize, and to inspire.

DEADLINE: SEPTEMBER 15, 2024. The Azrieli Foundation’s Holocaust Survivor Memoirs Program invites proposals that interpret the place of Auschwitz in shaping Holocaust survivor narratives and contribute to the interdisciplinary discussion on the role of Auschwitz in influencing collective memory of the Holocaust.

Jenna Leventhal is the Senior Director of Administration at USC Shoah Foundation. She earned a BA in history from UC Santa Barbara and an MA in public history from University of Houston, with an emphasis in Holocaust education and oral history.

In a five-hour interview with the USC Shoah Foundation, Justus Rosenberg refers to himself as a “small fry,” “a cog,” an unimportant person. And perhaps it was for this reason that for decades, the Bard College literature professor hadn’t let on—to his colleagues, to his students, and even, for a time, to his wife—that he had fought and outwitted the Nazis during World War II to save thousands from persecution.

An invaluable resource for humanity, with nearly every testimony encompassing a complete personal history of life before, during and after the subject’s firsthand experience with genocide. Learn more about the collections that make up the Institute's Visual History Archive.