In 1942 Nazi Germany occupied the French North African country of Tunisia and implemented anti-Jewish policy. At the age of 13, Eva Boukris Weisel and her family went into hiding, protected by Khaled Abdul Wahab, an Arab Muslim. Wahab saved nearly 20 Jews by hiding them in the stables at his farm. Weisel’s testimony is from the Testimonies from North Africa and the Middle East collection.

In 1942 Nazi Germany occupied the French North African country of Tunisia and implemented anti-Jewish policy. At the age of 13, Eva Boukris Weisel and her family went into hiding, protected by Khaled Abdul Wahab, an Arab Muslim. Wahab saved nearly 20 Jews by hiding them in the stables at his farm. Weisel’s testimony is from the Testimonies from North Africa and the Middle East collection.

After his arrest in September 1942, Stefan Kosinski was incarcerated while awaiting his trial. In this clip, he recounts the conditions in the jail and his memory of seeing his mother out the window of his jail cell keeping vigil. She is also present during his trial before the Nazi court, which sentences Stefan to five years hard labor. 

Foreign words in this clip:

• pedo (Polish): derogatory term for a gay person
• schwul (German): gay, homosexual
• Zuchthaus (German): penitentiary

In this lecture, Philippe Sands discusses his most recent book East West Street: On the Origins of 'Genocide' and 'Crimes Against Humanity' — part historical detective story, part family history, part legal thriller — to connect his work on 'crimes against humanity' and 'genocide', the events that overwhelmed his family in Lviv during World War II, and the untold story at the heart of the Nuremberg trial that pits lawyers Rafael Lemkin and Hersch Lauterpacht against Hans Frank, defendant number 7, former Governor General of Nazi-occupied Poland and Adolf Hitler's lawyer.

Linda Breder was a Kanada Kommando in Auschwitz who collected inmates' belongings they were forced to leave behind. Linda remembers how a Nazi soldier disciplined inmates complaining of thirst. Years later Breder testified at that soldier’s war crime trial. This is the 16th testimony clip in the series 70 days of Testimony: Leading up to the 70th Anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz.  

United States army veteran Don Shimazu remembers the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor December 7 1941. He was a part of the ROTC (Reserve Officers' Training Corps) at the University of Hawaii and remembers being put on duty right away.  A Hawaiian native, he also reflects on the tension the attack created in his family, since his parents were Japanese citizens.

Maria talks about her aunt Adele Bloch-Bauer, who was painted by Gustav Kilmt in his “Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer.” Nazi soldiers confiscated the painting at the start of WWII and after the war, the Austrian State Gallery claimed the painting as its own. Years later, Altmann fought to get the painting back for her family and she went before the U.S. Supreme Court in 2004. Ultimately, it was decided that the painting be sold to the Neue Galerie in New York City, and is currently worth $135 million. This is a part of the USC Shoah Foundation’s Women’s History Month Clip series.

At the inaugural Scholar Lab online lecture series event, held September 14, 2022, MacArthur Grant-winner Dr. Josh Kun of USC presents commentary, music and archival recordings in his exploration of the Nazi’s use of music as a soundtrack of terror. UCLA’s Dr. Todd Presner, winner of the Digital Media and Learning Prize from the MacArthur Foundation/HASTAC, presents a computational analysis of the language survivors use to describe antisemitism in Visual History Archive testimony.  Discussion moderated by Dr.

Éste video descargable contiene clips de testimonios de sobrevivientes judíos del Holocausto del Archivo de Historia Visual de la Fundación Shoah de la USC que nacieron y se criaron en la ciudad polaca de Oświęcim, ahora infame como la ubicación del sistema de campos de Auschwitz creado allí por la ocupación nazi de la administración alemana.

English translation: “First, I would like to thank Mr. Steven Spielberg for the brilliant idea he had to create the Shoah Foundation so that all the cruelty committed by the Nazis is never forgotten. I hope that all that we spoke about here, and all that is told about the Shoah, be just a small grain of sand in the vast mountain that should be created (formed) for the much-desired  peace in the world. And all that took place in Germany and in Europe should never happen again. I would also like to say that the world should prevent Nazi cruelty from returning with all its might.