During the month of April, as we observe commemoration days for four genocides, we take the opportunity to raise awareness about all genocides, including those being perpetrated today. April is an opportunity for those committed to history and remembrance to alert others to the moral and physical dangers of denying the past and of ignoring atrocities occurring in our own times. Access events, educational resources, and other opportunities to commemorate the victims of genocide.

On April 21, the Pasadena Armenian Coalition will host a community-wide event at the Pasadena Armenian Genocide Memorial Monument to commemorate the 109th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide. The event will pay tribute to the enduring strength and resiliency of the survivors of the 1915 Armenian Genocide, while honoring the memory of the more than 1.5 Million victims who lost their lives 109 years ago. The event will feature survivor testimonies from the Visual History Archive, followed by the keynote speaker, Sedda Antekelian, USC Shoah Foundation Senior Learning and Development Specialist, as well as remarks from Congresswoman Judy Chu. Students from local Armenian schools will recite poems and songs to conclude the event.

Hid in the bushes for hours at the Nova music festival, where 360 people were killed by Hamas. (00:48:25)

Born in Frankfurt am Main, Germany, in 1928, Lotte Schmerzler was sent to France with her older brother via the Kindertransport. In 1940, the two siblings fled to Portugal and snuck onto a boat headed for the United States, where they reunited with their mother in New York. (02:00:04)

Honey Chester was born in Magdeburg, Germany, in 1928. At age 10, she was sent to England via the Kindertransport where she reunited with her siblings. She lost her parents and extended family members in the Holocaust. (02:25:11)

Holocaust survivor David Fertig was born in Berlin, Germany, in 1922 to Polish parents. He escaped Nazi Germany on the Kindertransport at age 16 to live with cousins in England, where he joined the Royal Air Force. (02:04:22)

The Division of Academic Programs at the USC Shoah Foundation invites applications from PhD candidates and early-career scholars for the inaugural cohort of fellows in its non-residential colloquium “The LGBTQIA+ Community in the Holocaust.” We understand this topic broadly and are seeking applicants whose work touches on the members of any nation persecuted by the Nazis or their allies for their sexual identity, along with the long-term impact and legacies of this history.

The Division of Academic Programs at the USC Shoah Foundation invites applications from PhD candidates and early-career scholars for the inaugural cohort of fellows in its non-residential colloquium “Gender and Sexual Violence in the Holocaust.” We understand this topic broadly and are seeking applicants whose work touches on the members of any nation or population affected by these issues, as well as the long-term impact and legacies of these histories. from the between 1933 and 1955, though we will also consider projects whose scope may examine the legacies of this violence.

The USC Shoah Foundation and The Latin American Network for Education on the Shoah (Red LAES) have launched a new educational web page featuring the first Spanish-language Dimensions in Testimony (DiT), an interactive biography that invites students to engage in conversation with the recorded testimony of a Holocaust survivor.

On April 24, we call on the world to remember the genocide of the Armenian people. 109 years ago, during the First World War, Ottoman authorities arrested hundreds of Armenian intellectuals and community leaders in Constantinople (present-day Istanbul). At the time, the Ottoman Empire was under the control of the relatively new leadership of the Young Turks; a party that had sought to create an ethnically homogenous Turkish state – a state that would have little space for the millions of Armenians then living in that empire.

Sedda Antekelian, a member of USC Shoah Foundation’s education team, never knew her own great grandmother had recorded testimony about surviving the Armenian Genocide. Hearing her great grandmother’s voice for the first time has brought Sedda closer to family, filled in gaps about her own history, and opened even more questions.

Professor Dan Stone, a renowned historian of the Holocaust, will serve as the 2023-2024 Sara and Asa Shapiro Scholar in Residence at the USC Dornsife Center for Advanced Genocide Research and USC Shoah Foundation. He will spend a week in residence at the Center and USC Shoah Foundation in April and deliver the Annual Sara and Asa Shapiro Lecture entitled “The Holocaust: An Unfinished History” on April 8, 2024.

Samuel Clowes Huneke, author of the award-winning States of Liberation: Gay Men between Dictatorship and Democracy in Cold War Germany, uncovers stories about queer women during the Third Reich—their treatment in society and opportunities to resist.

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.

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.