Tenth grade students at Windward School in Mar Vista, California have been piloting a new IWitness activity titled What Can One Voice Tell Us About a Genocide as part of their Global Studies class.

In 1941, the Nazi regime, ordered the Jews in Germany to wear a Yellow Star of David inscribed with the word Jude (Jew). The following year, in June 1942, Jews in France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Slovakia, and other lands under German control were ordered to begin wearing Yellow Stars.  Betty Gerard shows the Yellow Star with the word Jood (Jew in Dutch) she was forced to wear as a child in the Westerbork Concentration Camp in the Netherlands.

Dr. Bertram Schaffner, who served in the U.S Army during World War II as a psychiatrist evaluating the mental fitness of draftees, speaks about the discriminatory laws and regulations against homosexuals in the U.S. Army and his efforts to protect their privacy.

On June 5, 1942, the Nazis reported having killed 97,000 Jews in specially constructed gas vans. Friedrich August Jeckeln — who served as an SS and police leader in the occupied Soviet Union during World War II — testified in 1945 that Reich Leader Heinrich Himmler, who organized the mass murder of Jews, told him shootings were too impractical, so gas vans were devised as a more efficient system. The method was initially used against the mentally insane in Polish hospitals in 1939. By 1942 the Nazis had begun to deploy more than 36 of these specially designed and equipped vans.

USC Shoah Foundation has granted the Istituto Centrale per i beni sonori ed audiovisivi headquarters in Rome full remote access to its Visual History Archive.

Born in Coburg, Germany, on Nov 17, 1923, Harry Nomburg fled from Germany to the United Kingdom and fought with the British armed forces. He was attached as an interpreter to Commando Force. In this clip, Harry recalls landing on Normandy on D-Day, June 6.

Refreshments will be served.

Branko Lustig, who served as one of the producers on Schindler’s List reflects upon his experience when he returned to Auschwitz during the making of the 1980s television mini-series “War and Remembrance.”

Holocaust survivors from the Bay Area of California who have shared their experiences on video, and in numerous in-person appearances, were recognized for their contributions at a ceremony in San Francisco on June 9, 2013.

Cinemark will hold special screenings of Schindler’s List, with all proceeds benefiting the USC Shoah Foundation—the Institute for Visual History and Education that the film inspired. Participating Cinemark theatres will screen Schindler’s List on Sunday, June 23 at 2 p.m. and 7 p.m., and on Wednesday, June 26, at 2 p.m. and 7:00 p.m.

Anna Heilman remembers fleeing from a burning building and making her way to the Aryan side during the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising in 1943. Anna relates she was rounded up by the SS on May 3, 1943, was transported back and taken directly to the “Umschlagplatz” in the ghetto. She describes the liquidation of the Warsaw ghetto. Anna, along with her sister and parents, was deported to the Majdanek concentration camp that May.

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Kori Street, PhD, director of education for USC Shoah Foundation, will deliver a presentation about its IWitness Program at the University of Miami’s 12th annual Holocaust Teacher Summer Institute on June 13, 2013. Street’s talk, “Learning to Use Holocaust Survivor Testimony in the Classroom,” will address the program’s value in teaching eyewitness history, as well as its ability to help build digital literacy. The Holocaust Teacher Institute is sponsored by the University of Miami School of Education & Human Development and the Miami Dade County Public Schools.

When Holocaust survivor Eva Schloss was 23 years old her mother Fritzi married Otto Frank, making her the posthumous stepsister to Anne Frank, who had died eight years earlier in a concentration camp. Like Anne, Eva went into hiding in Holland, and was betrayed, captured, and sent to the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp. Years later Eva’s daughter, Caroline Anne Schloss, was named for Anne, and reminded Otto of his late daughter. Although they were not close friends, Eva remembers meeting Anne and playing with her as a child.

USC Shoah Foundation is partnering with the American Sephardi Federation and other organizations to undertake the Sephardi and Mizrahi Jewish Testimony Collection, a new initiative to document the Sephardi and Mizrahi experience during World War II and the Holocaust.

Survivor Gad Ben-Meir recalls the Baghdad Pogrom of June 1-2, 1941, during the Jewish holiday of Shavuot, and what he saw looking out his window as a 9-year-old boy.

Sarah Ditman remembers witnessing the occupation of Paris, her city of birth, when the German armed forces invaded France on June 14, 1940. She recalls with sadness that as a young woman, she watched out her window as German soldiers were marching down the Champs-Elysées.

The International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) held its semiannual Plenary meetings in Berlin, Germany from 11-14 June 2013 under the Canadian Chairmanship. 

Marie speaks of her fondness for her father. She especially remembers not wanting to share his affection with her baby brother. “ I wanted to be the only one.” However, Marie notes that life for her family changed in 1939.

The Swedish Embassy today announced funding for an ambitious new Rwanda-wide peace-building program.  The Rwanda Peace Education Programme is designed to counter behavioral risk factors for genocide by promoting social cohesion, pluralism, personal responsibility, empathy, critical thinking and action to build a more peaceful society.

Hildegard recalls her trip from Shanghai, China to San Francisco, CA, on the board of the U.S. Army transporter “Marine  Adder,” in August 1947.  She explains that the trip was sponsored by the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC).

Eva reflects on the living conditions she had as a child living in Shanghai, China during the war and recalls her daily activities.