I recently emailed a teacher to ask if he was willing to be featured in a profile story on the USC Shoah Foundation website about his experiences using IWitness in his classroom. I had never been introduced to him and he had not been expecting to hear from me.
op-eds / Tuesday, September 23, 2014
Though Olga and Paula connected through testimony over a year ago, local media recently reported on their unique friendship and introduced them to the world.
/ Friday, December 26, 2014
Their focus is on Mexican-American youth activism of the 1930s and ‘40s, but the students in USC’s Echoes of the Mexican Voice journalism course will draw on aspects of USC Shoah Foundation’s Visual History Archive when they create their own multimedia website this semester.
usc, annenberg, mexico / Friday, February 21, 2014
Luisa Haberfeld remembers the selection process at Majdanek including being separated from her brother and father. Her testimony is feature in the IWitness Activity:Chance & Choice: A survivor's story.
clip, female, jewish survivor, Luisa Haberfeld, iwitness, majdanek, camp selections / Thursday, August 14, 2014
Dina Angress knew Anne Frank as a shy and quiet schoolmate in Amsterdam. Even though they weren’t close friends, she speaks on how Anne Frank’s diary was so relatable to her own story. Dina also relates on the importance of tolerance and Holocaust education.
clip, pastforward, jewish survivor, female, Dina Angress, Anne Frank, future message / Monday, June 30, 2014
Lusia Haberfeld recalls how her family evaded deportation by hiding in an attic within the Warsaw ghetto.  This clip from Lusia’s testimony is featured in the IWitness Activity: Chance & Choice: A survivor's story.
clip, female, jewish survivor, hiding, evasion, Lusia Haberfeld, warsaw ghetto, iwitness / Friday, September 26, 2014
I did not sleep well last night. It was not the kind of sleeplessness brought on by jet lag, stress or workload. It is best described as a kind of numbness that leaves one physically discharged, emotionally drained and deeply troubled. I just completed one the most sedentary days I’ve had in months, just sitting in a chair listening to one of the most intelligent, sophisticated, gentle, yet strong people I know tell me about his life.
poland, Sigmun Rolat, The Boy in the Striped Pajamas, résistance, op-eds / Monday, February 10, 2014
Six months after it launched, the online guest book has gathered a remarkable collection of messages from people who have been affected by testimony. All are encouraged to sign the guest book until Dec. 31, 2014.
guest book / Wednesday, July 16, 2014
The United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA) assisted in the operation of displaced persons installations in Deggendorf, Germany, following World War II. Steffi Aghassi describes the conditions in the Deggendorf displaced persons camp and shares her incredible story as to what she personally did to change the status quo.
clip, female, jewish survivor, Steffi Aghassi, Deggendorf / Wednesday, June 18, 2014
A class of 10th graders at High Tech High North County in San Marcos, Calif., experienced IWitness for the first time in a pilot of the newest IWitness activity "1936 Olympics: Race, Politics and Civil Rights."
iwitness, IWitness activity, pilot / Tuesday, March 11, 2014
As a result of a new partnership between USC Shoah Foundation and Mona Golabek’s Hold On to Your Music Foundation, students are able to interact with the beloved book The Children of Willesden Lane through the IWitness educational website.
IWitness activity, kindertransport, vera gissing / Wednesday, September 3, 2014
Ronald Tutor Campus Center (TCC) Forum, Room 450USC Shoah Foundation's 2013-2014 Institute Scholar, Dr. Douglas Greenberg, will looks at the lives of Jews before, during, and after the Holocaust in the Wolyn district of modern Ukraine.
/ Thursday, February 6, 2014
Clara Isaacman didn’t speak about her experience hiding from the Nazis in Belgium until about 20 years later. She reflects on how Elie Wiesel inspired her to write a book about her survival called, Clara’s Story. Clara’s testimony is featured in the IWitness activity, The Power of Words.
clip, female, jewish survivor, elie wiesel, belgium, iwitness, Clara Isaacman / Thursday, September 18, 2014
High school students from Sopron, Hungary, have created a traveling exhibition to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the deportations of Jews from Hungary during World War II, drawing from USC Shoah Foundation’s Visual History Archive for their research.
hungary, student, testimony / Friday, June 20, 2014
I recently returned to China to record audio-visual testimonies from survivors of the 1937 Nanjing Massacre. In February 2014, the Institute incorporated 12 Nanjing testimonies into its Visual History Archive, adding a new perspective to the 53,000 testimonies that we collected from the Holocaust and the Rwandan Tutsi Genocide.
Nanjing Massacre, china, nanjing, GAM, op-eds / Thursday, October 9, 2014
Two women brought together as a result of the genocide in Rwanda share their story.When Rwandans were called upon to kill all Tutsi, some refused. Throughout the country Hutu tried to help and hide Tutsi - thousands paid with their lives. In their hearts, these people believed that what they were being told to do was wrong, and that it was more important to protect life than to follow orders.
rwanda, rescuer, rwandan survivor, female / Friday, April 4, 2014
In recognition of his efforts to protect human rights, his commitment to education and his work advancing opportunities for all people, President Barack Obama was presented May 7 with the Ambassador for Humanity Award by Steven Spielberg.
ambassadors for humanity / Wednesday, May 7, 2014
Noémi Ban remembers the very first time she saw members of the SS, right before she and her family were deported to Auschwitz. She recalls the terrifying journey in the cattle cars from Hungary to Poland and also her first impressions of the concentration camp. This clip reel of Noémi’s testimony is featured in the IWitness activity My Story Matters.
clip, female, jewish survivor, noemi ban, auschwitz, déportation, human rights / Thursday, August 21, 2014
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!
a70, beginswithme / Monday, December 29, 2014
The winners of Student Voices 2014 were Syuzanna Petrosyan and Greg Irwin for their film Play for Your Life. Shirin Raban’s There is No Other Way received the viewer’s choice award and Rebecca Baugh’s Love, Noemi received an honorable mention.
/ Friday, March 7, 2014
March 28, 2013:  The Student Voices short film contest enables USC students to join the conversation about genocide and human rights by using the Visual History Archive to craft visual arguments around these topics. The top films were screened at a special event hosted by the USC School of Cinematic Arts. Following the screening, the USC Shoah Foundation moderated a discussion with the judges, including Ari Sandel, who won the 2006 Academy Award for Best Short Film for West Bank Story.
presentation / Friday, May 23, 2014
University of Southern California students will study post-genocide reconstruction this summer on the second annual Problems Without Passports trip to Rwanda. The course is led by USC Shoah Foundation's Dan Leshem and Amy Carnes.
problems without passports, Dan Leshem, amy carnes, usc, usc dornsife / Tuesday, January 21, 2014
Simone Lagrange (nee Kadousche) was born on October 23, 1930 in Saint-Fons, France, near Lyon. Originally from Morocco, her parents Simon Kadousche andRachel came to France in the 1920s.
/ Friday, January 24, 2014
Former USC Shoah Foundation executive director Douglas Greenberg has begun a two-month residency at USC Shoah Foundation as part of his 2013-2014 Institute Fellowship.
Doug Greenberg, institute fellow, fellowship, rutgers, Ukraine / Friday, February 7, 2014
Visitors to the Skirball Cultural Center in Los Angeles can now explore testimony from the USC Shoah Foundation within the museum’s core exhibition, Visions and Values: Jewish Life from Antiquity to America.
/ Tuesday, March 4, 2014
USC Shoah Foundation’s Nanjing Massacre testimony collection more than doubled in size last week when USC Shoah Foundation and Nanjing Massacre Memorial Hall conducted 18 new interviews with Nanjing Massacre survivors.
nanjing survivor, testimony, collection, visual history archive, karen jungblut / Wednesday, October 8, 2014
Vera Gissing (née Diamant) was born on July 4, 1928 in Prague, Czechoslovakia (now Czech Republic). Her father, Karel, owned a wine and spirits business inCelakovice, near Prague. Her mother, Irma, ran the business office. Vera attended a local Gymnasium and was very proud to be a Czech citizen. She had a sister, Eva,four years her senior.
female, jewish survivor, clip, unesco / Thursday, January 23, 2014
The first in-classroom pilot of IWitness in Rwanda will take place next week at Kagarama Secondary School in Kigali.
iwitness, rwanda, kigali, kigali genocide memorial / Thursday, February 6, 2014
Aegis Trust Rwanda’s new director of education took a deep dive into USC Shoah Foundation’s work in Rwanda during his visit to Los Angeles last week.
/ Monday, March 3, 2014
Aurora Mardiganian speaks here as a survivor of the Armenian Genocide. But from 1918-1920, she was also the face of the Genocide to literally millions of Americans and to others throughout the world. Her tragic, horrific story was told through a 1918 semi-autobiographical book, Ravished Armenia, and a 1919 screen adaptation, also known as Auction of Souls. With the immediacy of a newsreel, the human side to the Genocide was brought to the screen.
clip, female, armenian survivor, Aurora Mardiganian / Wednesday, April 23, 2014

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