Special education teacher Andra Coulter shares how testimony inspired her students in unprecedented ways.
appeal, advancement, andra coulter, Paula Lebovics / Monday, December 14, 2015
The 2014 cohort of Teaching with Testimony in the 21st Century in Poland reunited to share the lessons they piloted in their classrooms over the past year, with impressive results.
Teaching with Testimony, Teaching with Testimony in 21st Century, poland, Monika Koszynska / Tuesday, December 1, 2015
Hersch talks about anti-Semitism in Poland and the denial amongst the Jewish people that anything terrible would really happen to them.
clip, poland, anti-semitism / Tuesday, December 1, 2015
If you’ve ever watched genocide survivor testimony from the Visual History Archive and it spurned you to wonder what you can do to help prevent acts of intolerance and inhumanity, USC Shoah Foundation has an opportunity for you this holiday season.
op-eds / Tuesday, December 1, 2015
When Michael Russell joined the USC Shoah Foundation staff in 2008, it wasn’t the first time his family had crossed paths with Holocaust survivors.His dad, Sonny, worked with the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration after World War II, helping child Holocaust survivors get settled in England. Sonny even got to know Mayer Hersh, a well-known Holocaust survivor whose testimony is in the Visual History Archive.
/ Wednesday, December 2, 2015
Frieda talks about giving up her possessions and what life was like in the Warsaw ghetto. She talks about the education she received and how culture still continued to thrive in the ghetto.
clip, warsaw ghetto / Wednesday, December 2, 2015
Five more IWalks are in development in Hungary as part of a new initiative led by teachers who have graduated from USC Shoah Foundation’s Teaching with Testimony in the 21st Century professional development program.
iwalk, budapest, hungary, Andrea Szőnyi / Thursday, December 3, 2015
USC Shoah Foundation Center for Advanced Genocide Research Director Wolf Gruner and Center Fellow Kiril Feferman will both present papers at the 47th Annual Conference of the Association for Jewish Studies in Boston, Mass.Gruner will present "Letters and Memoranda: Overlooked Jewish Means of Opposition and Protest Against the Persecutin in Nazi Germany." Feferman will present "Responses of Ukrainian and Russian Jewish Religious Leadership to the Ukrainian Crisi"
/ Friday, December 4, 2015
Hyman Schwartzblatt describes how his mother, who had already been killed, visited him in a dream while he was in a Nazi prison and told him how to escape.
clip, escape / Friday, December 4, 2015
Esia Shor explains how a couple that she had worked for outside the Nowogrodek ghetto helped her disguise herself and hide when she ran to their house after escaping the ghetto. Today, Esia and 30 other Holocaust survivors were honored by New York Congressman Joseph Crowley in Bronx, New York, for their contributions to society.
clip / Friday, December 4, 2015
Giving his testimony to USC Shoah Foundation in 1998 literally changed Hyman Schwartzblatt’s life.Schwartzblatt’s grandson, Jewish music producer and composer Eli Gerstner, said Schwartzblatt told his family almost nothing about his experiences during the Holocaust. And when he did happen to make an offhand comment about his survival, they never knew what to make of it. What was the truth?
/ Friday, December 4, 2015
Museum of Tolerance9786 West Pico Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90035Dec. 13, 2015, 4 p.m.No Asylum, directed by Paula Fouce, is the dramatic and tragic story of Otto Frank’s desperate attempts to secure American visas before going into hiding with his family in 1942. Based on recently-discovered letters by Otto Frank in the YIVO Institute of Jewish Research’s archives, the film also includes interviews with Anne Frank’s surviving family.The screening wil be followed by a Q&A with Eva Geiringer-Schloss, Otto Frank’s stepdaughter, and director Paula Fouce.
/ Friday, December 4, 2015
A new anthology "From Testimony to Story: Video Interviews about Nazi Crimes: Perspectives and Experiences in Four Countries" includes two chapters about USC Shoah Foundation, written by its regional consultants in Czech Republic and Poland.
Martin Smok, Monika Koszynska, EVZ / Friday, December 4, 2015
It had been a long week and Renee Firestone was tired. But when a group of students showed up on Friday at the dark studio where she had spent days answering questions about her life, her mood quickly brightened, her energy restored.
ndt, New Dimensions in Testimony, Renee Firestone, ict / Monday, December 7, 2015
Renee talks about her transition into American life after settling down with her husband in Los Angeles. It wasn't until she received a phone call from the Simon Wiesenthal Center asking her to tell her story that she thought seriously about sharing her testimony with the world. Hearing about a particular anti-Semitic event that occured in Los Angeles made Renee reflect on her experiences and motivated her to share her experiences.
clip, Renee Firestone / Monday, December 7, 2015
Around the world, students are exploring genocide survivor testimony in IWitness – even in Pakistan.
/ Tuesday, December 8, 2015
The resolution was led by the Mission of the Republic of Armenia to the United Nations and had the support of over 80 member countries.
united nations, david strick, Dario Gabbai, edith umugiraneza, yevnigue salibian, sala pol-lim, aracely garrido / Tuesday, December 8, 2015
Auschwitz Sonderkommando survivor Dario Gabbai says he does not want to get revenge on the perpetrators of the Holocaust. He believes it is more impactful to have respectful dialogue.
clip, Dario Gabbai / Tuesday, December 8, 2015
USC Shoah Foundation’s liaison in Poland, Monika Koszyńska coordinates the Visual History Archive access sites in Poland; represents the Institute at conferences and seminars; organizes the Teaching with Testimony in the 21st Century training program for Polish educators; and coordinates fundraising and other outreach efforts. She is also on the staff of the Museum of the History of the Polish Jews’ education department, a Visual History Archive Access Site.
/ Wednesday, December 9, 2015
Poland faces a horrible wave of extremism after the election of a new right-wing government. As an educator and Polish citizen, I am not only scared by this type of radical hatred, but it also reminds me of the past because the same organization that marches on the streets of Polish cities today, organized boycotts of Jewish institutions and forbade Jewish students from studying at Polish universities before WWII.
poland, education, GAM, World Refugee Day, op-eds / Wednesday, December 9, 2015
Leo talks about the beginning of Jewish arrests and deportation in France, along with the rise of various camps in France such as Drancy that many Jewish people were sent to.
clip, france / Wednesday, December 9, 2015
USC Shoah Foundation’s French consultant Emmanuel Debono published an article about USC Shoah Foundation and its use of testimony in the French review journal Études arméniennes contemporaines (Contemporary Armenian Studies).
emmanuel debono, france / Wednesday, December 9, 2015
Just a few months after he started working at USC Shoah Foundation, Clarence Leung was on his way to Shanghai for the 2015 USC Global Conference.Leung, who has a background in accounting, joined the staff as a budget analyst in the executive administration department, where he helps track the Institute’s expenses and other financial processes.
/ Saturday, December 12, 2015
With the partnership of Arnold Mittelman, students can now exercise their creativity in a brand new way when learning about the Holocaust in IWitness.Mittelman is a theater producer, director, educator and administrator who has created almost 300 productions of plays, musicals and special events. He helped found and lead not-for-profit theaters including the Coconut Grove Playhouse in Miami. He is founder, president and producing artistic director of the National Jewish Theater Foundation (NJTF), which celebrates creativity and preserves Jewish culture in the performing arts.
/ Friday, December 11, 2015
Eva talks about her involvement with the Anne Frank Exhibition, which is about Anne's life and travels all around the world to educate students about the Holocaust through the eyes of a young girl. She assisted in the opening of a new Anne Frank exhibition in Vienna.
clip, Eva Schloss, Anne Frank / Thursday, December 10, 2015
Deshou Chen describes how his father was murdered during the Nanjing Massacre, Dec. 13-14, 1937.
clip, nanjing, Nanjing Massacre, nanjing survivor / Thursday, December 10, 2015
USC Shoah Foundation is co-hosting a film screening and Q&A about the new film No Asylum: The Untold Chapter of Anne Frank’s Story at the Museum of Tolerance in Los Angeles on Sunday, Dec. 13 at 4 p.m.
museum of tolerance, Eva Schloss, Anne Frank / Thursday, December 10, 2015
USC Shoah Foundation is honoring the 78th anniversary of the Nanjing Massacre today by returning to Nanjing to record 20 new testimonies for its Nanjing Massacre collection.
Nanjing Massacre, nanjing / Saturday, December 12, 2015
Through a partnership with the National Jewish Theater Foundation, IWitness has added a brand-new activity that guides secondary students to develop historical narrative monologues using testimonies of Holocaust survivors, witnesses and liberators.
iwitness / Friday, December 11, 2015
You’re never too old to learn about cultural diversity. I realized this over the weekend, on the eve of Hanukkah. My mom, a fourth grade teacher, told me about an incident she’d just experienced at a local party-supply store. She was shopping for her annual Hanukkah lesson, in which she briefly teaches her students the meaning of the holiday, demonstrates how she lights our family menorah, and leads them in a spirited game of dreidel. Everyone goes home with a little bag of chocolate gelt, a dreidel and maybe a Hanukkah-themed pencil.
hanukkah, Diversity, Holidays, Tolerance, op-eds / Thursday, December 10, 2015

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