Jared McBride, the fellowship’s debut recipient, was selected by a panel of USC researchers and professors for the originality of his proposal and its potential to advance genocide research.

Marianna Bergida grew up with little knowledge of most of her family – her mother, sister, cousins, grandparents, aunts and uncles were killed in Auschwitz when she was very young, and her father couldn’t speak about his own experiences during the Holocaust. Determined to not let other descendants of survivors lose their family history as she had, Bergida became an interviewer for the Shoah Foundation and ended up interviewing one of the real-life inspirations of Steven Spielberg’s film Schindler’s List.

Jared McBride, the fellowship’s debut recipient, was chosen by a panel of USC researchers and professors for the originality of his proposal and its potential to advance genocide research.

Mieczyslaw (Mietek) Pemper typed up the actual Schindler’s list and was saved by Oskar Schindler. Pemper speaks (in German) about Schindler and how he bribed and used personal connections to save hundreds of Jews. Pemper also describes how he came to work with Schindler and help in the creation of the list.