Harry Reicher, USC Shoah Foundation’s first-ever Rutman Teaching Fellow, wrapped up his four-day fellowship today with a talk that revealed how exceptionally valuable the Visual History Archive will become to his teaching.

Henry Rosmarin remembers when he was called into the commandant’s quarters at Dyhernfurth concentration camp in Germany late one night and told to play a musical piece by Schubert on the harmonica. Henry credits his musical skills on saving his life. Henry’s testimony clip is featured in the book, Testimony – The Legacy of Schindler’s List and the USC Shoah Foundation.  

In just a few short months I will be holding a new born baby in my arms. The depth and complexity of emotion that I feel as this time approaches is multiplied by the experiences I have had working at USC Shoah Foundation – The Institute for Visual History and Education. New acquaintances who inquire about what I do for a living often respond by saying, “Gosh, that must be depressing.” And my response has always been the same, “Actually, it is amazing and inspiring.” And it truly is.

The second IWitness educator workshop in Rwanda will be held next week, and will incorporate new elements to provide an experience unique from the first workshop last November.

In the Spring 2014 issue of PastForward, USC screenwriting professor Ted Braun discusses Joshua Oppenheimer's The Act of Killing and what it brings to our understanding of violence.

Alexovics Ingrid írása a vizuális archívumok oktatási célú felhasználásának lehetőségeiről

Kizito Kalima speaks on how he received an athletic scholarship while living in a refugee camp, which eventually led to his immigration to America. He also describes how playing basketball was a positive outlet for him as a young man.  

Hank Schwab describes the structure of his primary and high school in Germany. He also reflects on the close relationships he formed with his Jewish and gentile classmates. Schwab and fellow survivors returned to Germany for the first time since WWII, for their 50th high school reunion.

Students may still be enjoying their summer vacation, but the new school year is just around the corner. USC Shoah Foundation has prepared a convenient one-stop-shop of all its educational resources to help educators plan to teach with testimony this year.

Joel Citron is CEO of Tenth Avenue Holdings. Citron has served on the Board of Directors of several public and private companies in Europe and the U.S. Citron is also actively involved in philanthropy. He is currently President of the Board of Trustees at the Abraham Joshua Heschel School in New York (N-12th grade), a board member of USC Shoah Foundation and Starfall Education Foundation. Citron holds an MA in Economics and a BSc in Business Administration from the University of Southern California.

USC Shoah Foundation – The Institute for Visual History and Education was founded to capture the voices, emotions and faces of those who suffered, yet miraculously survived the most heinous crime ever committed against humanity by humanity. The idea was to record individual and collective memories that would be preserved in perpetuity as a seminal educational tool to inform current and future generations that incitement, hate and violence against a person or a group can ultimately lead to death, genocide and ultimately extermination.

A series of Croatian-language Holocaust lessons commissioned in 2006 by the Croatian Ministry of Science, Education and Sports is now available on USC Shoah Foundation’s website. The lessons draw on testimony to teach various aspects of the Holocaust in Croatia.

Jewish survivor Felix Flicker joined the Soviet Armed Forces in 1943. Flicker recalls arriving at Majdanek concentration camp after it was liberated in July 1944. He describes the prisoners looking like skeletons and the arrests and executions of the camp guards.

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.

When professor and scholar Katerina Kralova began researching the everyday life of Jewish communities of Central, East and South-East Europe after the Holocaust, she relied on the Visual History Archive as a crucial source for complex insights not found anywhere else.

The medical experiments of Josef Mengele on concentration camp prisoners are well known and documented – but journalist Arthur Allen has written a new book, with help from the Visual History Archive, about two little-known doctors whose experiments actually saved lives and were in themselves acts of defiance against the Nazis.

If you’ve ever liked a Facebook post or replied to a tweet from the USC Shoah Foundation, you’ve met Deanna Pitre – at least virtually.

USC Shoah Foundation’s 2013 Yom Hashoah Scholar in Residence, Marianne Hirsch, says she is looking forward to discussing digital technologies and how to teach future generations about genocide at the Memory, Media and Technology: Exploring the Trajectories of Schindler’s List international conference this November.

In MemoriumOur friend and fellow scholar Harry Reicher passed away October 27, 2014.

Ukraine has recently made headlines for its ongoing conflict with Russia, but Anna Lenchovska has helped bring human rights educational resources to the country for nearly 10 years as USC Shoah Foundation’s Ukrainian consultant.

Lesly Culp, is USC Shoah Foundation’s Director of Education. In her role, she leads the educational strategic plan to make audiovisual testimonies and interactive biographies of survivors and witnesses of genocide and mass atrocity accessible to educators and students worldwide.