In 2018, under the initiative of the Yale Library’s Fortunoff Video Archive, three leading institutions holding large collections of Holocaust testimonies agreed to make a portion of their materials available as transcripts, along with a subset of video recordings, in Let Them Speak / In Search of the Drowned: Testimonies and Testimonial Fragments of the Holocaust (LTS). LTS is a searchable digital anthology of testimonies which examines survivor experiences and uses them to understand the experiences of those who did not survive. It is also a dynamic monograph with essays by Dr.

Longtime USC Shoah Foundation Executive Committee and Board of Councilors member Mickey Shapiro has provided a major endowed gift to create an inaugural academic chair at the Institute that will be dedicated to deepening the study of the impact of Holocaust education.

Today marks the 83rd anniversary of the arrival of the first Kindertransport to the United Kingdom. This rescue operation saved 10,000 child refugees from Nazi-occupied Europe.

As part of the commemoration, USC Shoah Foundation has produced an animated short film, “Music Dreams,” based on the story of Lisa Jura, a young Holocaust survivor who in 1938 escaped from Vienna to London on the Kindertransport.

It was 83 years ago this week that 13-year-old Lisa Jura boarded a Kindertransport train from Vienna to London, the first step in a journey that would be memorably depicted by her daughter Mona Golabek in the acclaimed The Children of Willesden Lane books.

A series of rescue efforts organized by Sir Nicholas Winton, the Kindertransport helped nearly 10,000 Jewish children escape from Germany, Austria, and Czechoslovakia to safety in the United Kingdom.

USC Shoah Foundation and The Willesden Project today launch the premiere of Music Dreams, an animated short film story telling the story of Lisa Jura, a young Holocaust survivor who in 1938 escaped from Vienna to London on the Kindertransport.

USC Shoah Foundation and The Conscious Kid are partnering to develop and implement a series of grade K-5 resources and education initiatives to counter antisemitism and raise awareness to appreciate cultural, ethnic and religious diversity.

The Conscious Kid was founded in 2016 by Katie Ishizuka and Ramon Stephens, both parents of color who found a lack of diverse representation in children’s literature at their local library when looking for reading material for their young sons.

The Institute mourns the passing of members of our community in 2021, including survivors who have given testimony Julio Botton, Fritzie Fritzshall, Eddie Jaku, Roman Kent, Rabbi Bent Melchior, Ruth Pearl, Suzy Ressler, Irving Roth, and Marcus Segal.
Another year dominated by the ongoing pandemic draws to a close. From producing animated films to conducting interviews, forging new partnerships and sharing incredible testimonies, 2021 was a year to remember. Here are some of the highlights of the work the Institute has accomplished.

In February 2012 Holocaust survivor Pinchas Gutter sat down inside a light stage surrounded by 50 cameras and 6,000 LED bulbs to give his testimony to the USC Shoah Foundation’s Visual History Archive.

Gutter’s interview was the first proof of concept of Dimensions in Testimony (DiT), a groundbreaking new technology that enables viewers to pose questions to survivors like Gutter and hear their responses in real-time, lifelike conversation.

USC Shoah Foundation and the Armenian Genocide Museum Institute Foundation (AGMI) in Yerevan have launched a new partnership to develop programming to extend the reach of their collections, research and education initiatives using testimony related to the 1915 Ottoman campaign that murdered 1.5 million Armenians.