Holocaust and genocide experts and representatives from Holocaust organizations around the world are gathering in China this week for the 2013 Association of Holocaust Organizations (AHO) conference. USC Shoah Foundation’s director of education, Kori Street, will present a session called “Global Testimony-Based Education.”

Anita Hirsch recalls when an aid worker helped her escape the Brzesko ghetto in Poland. Anita remembers hiding from the Gestapo who knew that she had escaped.

As president of the Koret Foundation and chairman of Taube Philanthropies, Tad Taube has contributed millions to philanthropic causes around the world. But he says his dedication to USC Shoah Foundation is simply “a natural thing to do.” Taube and his parents fled Poland in 1939 and ultimately settled in Los Angeles. After getting his master’s in industrial engineering from Stanford, Taube was one of the creators of E-H Research Laboratories and began a career in real estate.

In October 1941 the Nazi’s started to transport Jews from Vienna to ghettos in Easter Europe. Regine Cohen remembers when she and her family were deported from their home in Vienna to a ghetto.

USC Shoah Foundation’s liaisons in Italy will give a presentation to Italian Parliament Oct. 16 to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the deportation of Roman Jews.

Abraham Bomba remembers arriving to the Treblinka extermination camp and the selection process for the gas chambers.

Thomas Blatt remembers his participation in the uprising that took place in the Sobibor death camp in Poland on October 14, 1943, and relates it was led by camp prisoners, Aleksandr (Sasha) Pechersky and Leon Feldhendler. He describes the mass escape of the camp prisoners as a result of the uprising.

We continue the 10-part Echoes and Reflections series with Lesson 5: The "Final Solution."

Join us for a panel discussion on the role of international institutions, NGOs and civil society in addressing and preventing mass atrocities, featuring USC Shoah Foundation Director of Education Kori Street and USC International Relations Professor Douglas Becker. USC Ronald Tutor Campus Center, Room 350 Contact: vhi-academic@dornsife.usc.edu  

A Conversation Between Professors Yehuda Bauer (Hebrew University, Emeritus) and Xu Xin (Nanjing University)Noted Holocaust scholar Professor Yehuda Bauer is Professor Emeritus of History and Holocaust Studies at the Avraham Harman Institute of Contemporary Jewry at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and Academic Advisor to Yad Vashem. Credited with widely expanding Holocaust education within Chinese academia, Professor Xu Xin is the Director of the Glazer Institute of Jewish Studies at Nanjing University, where he initiated the undergraduate and graduate Jewish Studies programs.

“Holocaust and Ethnic Cleansing in the North Caucasus, 1942-43” Lecture by Crispin Brooks (USC Shoah Foundation) Crispin Brooks, curator of USC Shoah Foundation's Visual History Archive, will present a paper that examines the parallels of Nazi and Soviet Mass Violence in the Karachai autonomous region, 1942-43. Sponsored by Shapell-Guerin Chair in Jewish Studies. USC Social Science Building, Room 250 Contact: vhi-academic@dornsife.usc.edu

Gerard Friedenfeld remembers when the Nazis occupied the Sudetenland. He was only a child when his father was arrested with groups of other men. Later the Nazis ordered all other Jewish women and children to leave their homes.

Watching testimony and participating in the Student Voices Film Contest helped Mariana Aguilar heal from an experience with racism.

Summary: Free and open to the public, monthly Institute visits give guests a chance to explore the life stories of survivors and witnesses of the Holocaust and other genocides and to discover how their memories are being used to overcome prejudice, intolerance, and bigotry. Description:

A group of dedicated USC students is reviving the Shoah Foundation Institute Student Association (SFISA).

Giulia Spizzichino, who gave her testimony in Italian on March 25, 1998, speaks about the Ardeatine Caves Massacre that took place outside Rome on March 24, 1944. In one of the worst massacres in Italy during World War II, over 300 Italian men were shot, in retaliation for an attack on SS personnel by resistance fighters. The previous day, the Patriotic Action Group (Gruppi d'Azione Patriotica, or GAP) set off a bomb that killed 33 German soldiers marching on Via Rassella. Hitler made an order that within 24 hours, 10 Italians were to be shot for each dead German.

Board members, senior staff and other supporters of USC Shoah Foundation – The Institute for Visual History and Education are traveling throughout Hungary and Poland this week on the Institute’s mission to Eastern Europe.

Eötvös Loránd University in Budapest is now the second Visual History Archive access site in Hungary and the 45th in the world.

A budapesti Eötvös Loránd Tudományegyetem Magyarországon a második és a világon a 45. hozzáférési pont, ahonnan a Vizuális Történelmi Archívum összes interjúja elérhető. Az első hozzáférési pont 2oo9-ben nyílt meg a Közép-európai Egyetemen (CEU).

Sol Liber explains his involvement as a resistance fighter during the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, which took place beginning April 16, 1943. Along with his fellow ghetto inhabitant, Hakiva Leifer, he fought in the Warsaw ghetto until his capture and eventual deportation to the Treblinka II Death Camp, Poland, in May 1943.

Ernest James speaks of his participation as a United States soldier in the battle for Aachen, Germany, in October 1944. He explains how the United States armed forces surrounded Aachen and forced the German armed forces to surrender. It was October 21, 1944.  

Our 10-part Echoes and Reflections series continues with Lesson 6: Jewish Resistance.

USC Shoah Foundation – The Institute for Visual History and Education brought its series of events for Genocide Awareness Week to a close on Thursday, April 11, 2013 with a screening and discussion with filmmaker Elida Schogt.

Freddy Diament remembers participating in the revolt at Sachsenhausen concentration camp in Germany. He recalls hearing rumors that SS personnel were going to gas Jews in the camp. So a group of prisoners decided to fight the Nazis, rather than just be killed by them.

Three years after Charles University’s Malach Center gained access to the Visual History Archive, its importance as a destination for testimony-based research, educational activities and discourse on the Holocaust continues to grow.

The Institute has updated its Visual History Archive (VHA), which now integrates Google Maps for a new way to search the testimonies.

Eva Schloss, stepsister and childhood friend of Anne Frank, spoke to a capacity-crowd at USC on January 22, in an event sponsored by Chabad @ USC and USC Shoah Foundation – The Institute for Visual History and Education.

Representatives from more than 30 Holocaust museums and centers in the United States and Canada came to Los Angeles this week for the 2013 Association of Holocaust Organizations (AHO) Winter Seminar, hosted for the first time by USC Shoah Foundation – The Institute for Visual History and Education.