A young girl in Israel has a new “big sister” thanks to the IWitness Video Challenge.

One of Rwanda’s most prolific ambassadors of tolerance and action against genocide is Yannick Tona, who, at 24 years old, has already emerged as a powerful speaker and future leader.

Heather Dune Macadam is fighting to bring the story of 999 girls to life.Macadam is currently fundraising to make a documentary film called First Transport to Auschwitz: The Story of 999 Girls. The deadline for her Kickstarter campaign is Mon., March 31; click here to make a donation.

April 8 marked International Roma Day, which aims to bring attention to the marginalization and racism affecting the Roma minority in Europe. USC Shoah Foundation educational consultant and historian Mikhail Tyaglyy believes testimony is one important way of fighting against the bigotry and intolerance that still affect people decades after the Holocaust.Tyaglyy spent two years as an interviewer for the Shoah Foundation in the 1990s, conducting around 100 testimonies of Jewish Holocaust survivors, Krimchaks and rescuers in Crimea.

He’s only in seventh grade, but Benjamin Newman knows that Holocaust survivors’ memories of discrimination and acts of hate are still all too relevant.

USC Libraries presented its first-ever Research Award last month to a student who turned to the Visual History Archive to research transitional justice in South Africa and Rwanda.Nitya Ramanathan, a junior international relations major, took first place for her paper How do We Put Ourselves Back Together? An Analytical Comparison between Transitional Justice in Rwanda and South Africa, written for Professor Wolf Gruner’s Comparative Genocide course.

As a featured speaker at the 2014 Ambassadors for Humanity gala in Los Angeles, Michelle Sadrena Clark said that the USC Shoah Foundation had changed her life and her teaching. “We learned about that last year” is something a teacher never wants to hear her students say, but those are exactly the words Michelle Sadrena Clark heard from her students. What concerned her most was that they were talking about the Holocaust, as if it were just another history topic to cover once and then check off the list.

(L-r: Schiff, Pitcher-Hoffman, Merritt)Eighth graders Ayva Schiff and Ruby Merritt received a special delivery yesterday: their award certificates honoring them as regional winners of the IWitness Video Challenge.

When Ruth Hernandez watched testimonies of Holocaust survivors in IWitness, the stories of people who had to leave their homes inspired her to help modern-day immigrants – and helped her connect with her own family’s history.

Born in Tunisia in 1940, Jacqueline Gmach left at the age of 18. Though her family was not directly in danger, the Nazi genocide remains deeply personal to her. She has devoted her career to educating people about its horrors as well as promoting the Jewish culture its executioners tried to obliterate. A scholar with degrees and credentials from institutions ranging from the Sorbonne in Paris to the University of Jerusalem and the University of Montreal, Gmach serves as project director for USC Shoah Foundation’s Testimonies of North Africa and the Middle East project.

(From left: Steven Katz, Abraham Zuckerman, Wayne Zuckerman)Abraham Zuckerman spent most of his life bringing honor and attention to Oskar Schindler, who saved his life during the Holocaust. Now, his children have honored Zuckerman himself by helping to bring to life the new book Testimony: The Legacy of Schindler’s List and the USC Shoah Foundation.

David Tomkins’ students will learn about global rhetorics of survival through testimonies from the Visual History Archive following Tomkins’ teaching fellowship this summer at the USC Shoah Foundation.

IWitness (and survivor Roman Kent) has had a profound effect on the entire eighth grade class at Saraland Middle School in Alabama, says teacher Donna Hughes.Hughes teaches eighth grade language arts and seventh grade journalism, and learned about IWitness at an Echoes and Reflections workshop. She has since incorporated testimony into her Holocaust curriculum in order to supplement her students’ reading and provide them access to real survivors, she said.

Next year, scholars, students and the public will be able to start watching the 400 interviews of Armenian Genocide survivors and witnesses filmed by Dr. J. Michael Hagopian in USC Shoah Foundation’s Visual History Archive. But Carla Garapedian has already watched every single one.

Through her research, writing and teaching, Andrea Peto is introducing her students and colleagues at Central European University to the many scholarly applications of the Visual History Archive.Peto’s research interests are oral history and women’s history, and she has authored books on women’s employment in 1950s, women’s associations 1945-1951, a biography of Julia Rajk and the female perpetrators in Hungary during World War II.

For Libero Antonio (Tony) Di Zinno and his photography students, visiting the USC Shoah Foundation last week was not just a chance to learn about the Visual History Archive and its 53,000 testimonies. It was also an opportunity to deeply explore their sense of purpose as global citizens and responsibility as visual storytellers.

History Professor Emily Musil Church is teaming up with USC Shoah Foundation associate director of education – evaluation and scholarship Amy M. Carnes, Ph.D., to bring seven students on their first trip to Rwanda on the second annual Problems Without Passports trip.

Last week, students from Cleveland High School in Cleveland, Tenn., saw a familiar face on the LIVE with Kelly and Michael show: Athena Davis, their English and Holocaust Literature teacher. Davis is one of five finalists who are vying to be named LIVE’s Top Teacher thanks to their exceptional work as educators and leaders in their schools and communities.

Jeffrey Shandler, a Visual History Archive researcher and former Institute Fellow at the USC Shoah Foundation, will return to USC this November to participate in the Memory, Media and Technology: Exploring the Trajectories of Schindler’s List international conference.

One of the most infamous residences in the world is currently at the center of an intense worldwide debate. Austrian historian Andreas Maislinger is gathering support for his own idea that would transform it into a place of learning and positive action.

Jenna Leventhal was first introduced to the USC Shoah Foundation as an undergraduate at UC Santa Barbara, working on a project for a public history course. Now, as manager of IWitness, she says her journey from student to Shoah Foundation education staff has come full circle.

For Mukesh Kapila, the first-ever conference convened by the USC Shoah Foundation Center for Advanced Genocide Research this November will be an opportunity to join his colleagues from all over the world in supporting each other and making progress in their field.Mukesh Kapila, CBE is Professor of Global Health and Humanitarian Affairs at the University of Manchester. He is also Special Representative of the Aegis Trust for the prevention of crimes against humanity, and Chair of Minority Rights Group International. 

New University of Southern California graduate Bijou Nguyen focused on the testimonies of one of the least well-known groups persecuted during the Holocaust for her USC Libraries Award second-place research paper The Paradoxical Treatment of Male Homosexual Prisoners During the Holocaust.

Documentary filmmaker J. Michael Hagopian didn’t have to look too far for survivors of the Armenian Genocide. Somehow, says his wife Toni Hagopian, they always found him.“The first time I experienced it, we were in New York on our honeymoon and there was a note left in the laundry asking if [Michael] was any relation to Mikael, which was Mike’s father,” Toni said. “The man said Dr. Mikael had saved his father’s life. We heard that a lot.”

Holocaust survivor testimony is what sparked Rachel Deblinger’s interest in studying American postwar Holocaust memory. For her dissertation, she researched other groups for whom testimony was equally eye-opening: American Jews and Jewish communal organizations in the aftermath of World War II.

After a survivor gives his or her testimony to the USC Shoah Foundation, what happens next?If you’re like Kizito Kalima, you come back to the Shoah Foundation four years later to find out.Kalima survived hiding, attempted mass executions and the deaths of many family members as a child during the 1994 Rwandan Tutsi Genocide. He recorded his testimony in 2010 from his home in Indianapolis, where he lives with his wife and their two adopted daughters, who are also survivors of the Rwandan Tutsi Genocide.

After visiting USC Shoah Foundation for the first time, Alice Petrossian of the Armenian National Committee of America (ANCA) is excited to begin a new partnership to promote education about the Armenian Genocide and other atrocities.

Teacher Loranda Miletic was instrumental in the creation of innovative and highly popular Croatian-language lessons that teach students about the Holocaust through testimony.

With an ambitious slate of visiting scholars, academic events, educational programs and trips to faraway places, the staff of USC Shoah Foundation tends to be a busy lot.In order to share these interesting goings-on with people around the world, the Institute updates its website daily with news stories and profiles of some of the people who pass through its doors.The job to chronicle these events for the outside world falls to one person.

She may be a Bruin, but Natalie Kalbakian is committed to working with the USC Shoah Foundation and its Armenian Genocide collection as one of the Institute’s newest interns.Kalbakian is a junior at UCLA majoring in political science and minoring in film studies. She is also the vice president of the UCLA Armenian Students’ Association, which supports the Armenian student community and various Armenian causes.