Anna Heilman remembers helping her sister, Ester Wajcblum, smuggle gunpowder to aid in the Sonderkommando Uprising at Auschwitz II-Birkenau. This is the 52nd testimony clip in the series 70 Days of Testimony: Leading up to the 70th Anniversary of the Liberation of Auschwitz. 

Huguette Frank describes the horrific treatment of prisoners by the SS in Auschwitz including executions, selections and beatings. This is the 53rd testimony clip in the series 70 Days of Testimony: Leading up to the 70th Anniversary of the Liberation of Auschwitz. 

Rachel Amit remembers when her friend was pregnant in Auschwitz and the horrific events after she gave birth. This is the 54th testimony clip in the series 70 Days of Testimony: Leading up to the 70th Anniversary of the Liberation of Auschwitz. 

Sientje Backer recalls the living conditions in Block 10 in Auschwitz. This is the 55th testimony clip in the series 70 Days of Testimony: Leading up to the 70th Anniversary of the Liberation of Auschwitz.

Branko Lustig remembers hearing constant gunshots coming from the barrack next to his where many Polish political prisoners were killed. This is the 56th testimony clip in the series 70 Days of Testimony: Leading up to the 70th Anniversary of the Liberation of Auschwitz. 

Moses Kantorowitz describes stealing rotten potatoes from the kitchen in Auschwitz - I and then he describes the camp punishment he received. This is the 57th testimony clip in the series 70 Days of Testimony: Leading up to the 70th Anniversary of the Liberation of Auschwitz. 

In January USC Shoah Foundation will launch #BeginsWithMe across our online communities. Leading up to the launch we will be sharing videos from our friends and partners who have experienced the power of testimony and the actions it inspires.

Lesly Culp decided to teach with eyewitness testimony to the Holocaust from the Visual History Archive to teach her students on what it means to be human. An extremely valuable lesson. ‪#‎BeginsWithMe‬ launches in two weeks!

USC Shoah Foundation - The Institute for Visual History and Education is readying at least 40 of the nearly 400 Armenian testimonies it has secured from the Armenian Film Foundation for inclusion in the Visual History Archive. It is anticipated the entire collection will be integrated by the fall of 2015.

Armenian Genocide survivor Mihran Andonian is interviewed by J. Michael Hagopian on Feb. 8, 1987. This testimony is part of USC Shoah Foundation's Armenian Genocide collection.

Armenian Genocide survivor Haroutune Aivazian is interviewed by J. Michael Hagopian on May 12, 1993. This testimony is part of USC Shoah Foundation's Armenian Genocide collection.

Program by Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum, USC Shoah Foundation and World Jewish Congress in partnership with Discovery Education

Melissa Kravetz and Jenna Leventhal first met as undergraduate history majors at UC Santa Barbara over 10 years ago. Now, they are working together to introduce students to testimony through IWitness.

Milena Santerini, a professor and representative in Italian Parliament, has been a longtime partner and supporter of the Giving Memory a Future project with USC Shoah Foundation. That’s because she believes it is vital to teach Italians the true story of the Roma/Sinti people so that this long-excluded minority can find its place in Italian life.

At the University of the Aegean in Greece, Pothiti Hantzaroula says IWitness helps her students understand the impact of the Holocaust on their own lives and the lives of others.

Since graduating from USC Shoah Foundation’s Master Teacher Workshop in 2010, Hank Koransky has made IWitness an integral part of his teaching at Brentwood School in Los Angeles.Koransky is a history teacher, chair of the history department and dean of faculty at Brentwood School, and has taught courses on everything from Ancient and Medieval History to AP Comparative Government.

By Cat VazquezWhen asked about what she does for a living, Judy Janec starts off with an explanation rather than a title. An average day at the office for her can take place anywhere, and at any time, but the assignment is the same: to index video testimonies from Holocaust survivors and witnesses. Often working from her laptop at a café or library, she closely watches the interviews, and using judgment and discretion, assigns key terms to each section of the testimony.

Even in the earliest days of the USC Shoah Foundation, a staff of hundreds worked around the world to conduct interviews and create educational materials that used testimony to teach about the Holocaust. Yet, if they were based oversees, they probably never had the opportunity to visit the foundation’s headquarters in Los Angeles. That was Annette Wulf until just a few months ago, when she visited the office for the first time.

With the publication of her book Une vie contre une autre (One Life Against Another) historian Sonia Combe has become one of the first French scholars to extensively use the Visual History Archive in academic research – and she hopes many other researchers will follow in her footsteps.

Keith Meador doesn’t mind that his students say they’d rather watch videos in class than listen to him lecture.That’s because the videos they are referring to are USC Shoah Foundation testimonies.

When Christa Calkins travels to Poland on USC Shoah Foundation and Discovery Education’s Auschwitz: The Past is Present professional development program this January, her students back home will be right there with her –at least virtually.

When Keith Stringfellow was about 12, he was reading a book about World War II when his great uncle, a World War II veteran, began telling him about his experiences at Normandy after D-Day. Stringfellow asked him what affected him most during the war, and he answered simply, “Dachau.”

Living and working in the UNESCO World Heritage city of Trebic, Czech Republic, Daniela Vitaskova often teaches history by taking her students to historical sites. As one of 25 teachers chosen to travel to Poland to attend the Auschwitz: The Past is Present professional development program in January, Vitaskova will prepare herself to take her students to Auschwitz later next year.