April 19, 2012: For the Institute's Yom HaShoah Commemoration Event on Thursday, April 19, 2012, Father Patrick Desbois, a Catholic priest and author of The Holocaust by Bullets, gave a keynote address discussing his field research on identifying sites of mass executions in Ukraine. Students, community members, faculty, and staff gathered for a moving evening, which also included readings by USC students, live music, a candle lighting, and prayer.

April 16, 2012: Dr. Yehuda Bauer, one of the foremost authorities on the subject of the Holocaust, made an exclusive trip to Los Angeles to give the Institute's inaugural Yom Hashoah lecture. Bauer, who is the Institute's scholar-in-residence, discussed the roots of genocide and realistic approaches to overcoming it.