Tento sestřih z filmových vzpomínek pamětníků původně vznikl jako součást programu 5. výroční konference Centra vizuální historie Malach při Univerzitě Karlově v Praze. Úryvky z rozhovorů vybrané Jakubem Mlynářem, koordinátorem CVHM, a sestříhané Martinem Šmokem, konzultantem USC SF, ukazují nejen rozsah a hloubku Archivu vizuální historie, ale jsou také kulturním a emocionálním zážitkem. Zachycují roli, jakou v našich životech a vzpomínkách hrají písně a nápěvy.

Tento sestřih z filmových vzpomínek pamětníků původně vznikl jako součást programu 5. výroční konference Centra vizuální historie Malach při Univerzitě Karlově v Praze. Širšímu publiku představují veselé, odbojné a protinacistické kabaretní písničky z terezínského ghetta a jidiš písně tradičních židů. Sestřih tak zachycuje část mozaiky kultur a identit, o kterou naši společnost připravila genocida osob označených za Židy za druhé světové války.

Students examine Ellis Lewin’s testimony in the Information Quest about his life before, during and after the Holocaust.

Ellis Lewin describes the horrible living conditions including personal property seizure in the Lodz Ghetto. This tesitmony clip is featured in the IWitness activity Information Quest: Ellis Lewin.

Eva Krause reflects on being liberated from Bergen-Belsen concentration camp and how the experience strengthened her faith.  

Digital Archives such as the VHA have unbounded teaching potential. The focus of this panel is on how putting such archives to pedagogical use presents unique challenges for instructors, but also innovative opportunities for students to engage with visual testimony. The panelists will explore the themes of creating a dialogue between the student and the testimony through repeated exposure, editing and understanding narratives. Chair: Todd Presner, Ph.D.Christina Isabel BrüningDJ Johnson, M.F.A.Roy Schwartzman, Ph.D.

Stunning works of art, film and writing have once again been given top prizes at Chapman University and The 1939 Society’s 16th Annual Holocaust Art & Writing Contest.

Theodore Zev Weiss Holocaust Educational Foundation Professor at Northwestern University Peter Hayes examines antisemitism and homophobia as central components of Nazi racism.

USC Shoah Foundation CTO Sam Gustman is the keynote speaker at Tuesday’s Metadata Madness conference in Los Angeles, which will convene data experts from across the entertainment and technology industries to discuss the latest developments in metadata and distribution.

Eli Benyacar describes life in the Salonika Ghetto in Greece including the cramped apartment shared between multiple families. Eli also recalls how a Greek policeman notified his family that men were being deported to Auschwitz and helped the men in the family escape the deportations. However, the next day Eli and his brother found out that everyone including woman were deported so they returned to be deported with the rest of their family.

The webinar will provide instructions and helpful tips for implementing the assignment and submitting students' entries to the contest.

Rob Kuznia joined the communications department of USC Shoah Foundation as publicist last fall. Today, he is celebrating a major accomplishment from his previous life as a journalist: a Pulitzer Prize for Local Reporting.

Helena Jonas Rosenzweig recalls arriving to Oskar Schindler’s factory in Brünnlitz after being imprisoned in Auschwitz. This testimony clip is featured in the IWitness activity IWitness Video Challenge.  

USC Shoah Foundation is planning to record 20 new testimonies for the second phase of its North Africa and Middle East collection. Fundraising is currently underway for this phase to begin.

Dr. Wolf Gruner, Chair of the USC Center for Advanced Genocide Research, will be presenting a paper at "Gender, Memory and Genocide. An International Conference Marking 100 Years Since the Armenian Genocide," held in Berlin, Germany, at The Center for Research on Antisemitism, Berlin Institute of Technology.

Diane Wohl first visited USC Shoah Foundation when it was housed in trailers on the Universal Studios backlot nearly 20 years ago, and her support for its mission and programs has only continued to grow over the years.

In 1942 Nazi Germany occupied the French North African country of Tunisia and implemented anti-Jewish policy. At the age of 13, Eva Boukris Weisel and her family went into hiding, protected by Khaled Abdul Wahab, an Arab Muslim. Wahab saved nearly 20 Jews by hiding them in the stables at his farm. Weisel’s testimony is from the Testimonies from North Africa and the Middle East collection.

In 1942 Nazi Germany occupied the French North African country of Tunisia and implemented anti-Jewish policy. At the age of 13, Eva Boukris Weisel and her family went into hiding, protected by Khaled Abdul Wahab, an Arab Muslim. Wahab saved nearly 20 Jews by hiding them in the stables at his farm. Weisel’s testimony is from the Testimonies from North Africa and the Middle East collection.

What does it mean to live 70 years after the liberation of Auschwitz in a world in deep crisis? What does it mean with all we know about the damage that hatred causes – after all the pain we have gone through – that we are hurtling out of control into an inferno of rage that takes us right back to where we started?  Why are survivors of the Holocaust who walked out of the camps with at least the hope that their own suffering was not in vain, dying disappointed?

USC Shoah Foundation has published a new online exhibit and two new IWitness activities that expand the Institute’s educational offerings in terms of language and subject matter.

Julia Lentini describes the events on March 8, 1943, when the town mayor told her father that Julia's family would be deported from their home to Frankfurt for a few days. The family was deported to the Auschwitz concentration and extermination camp. This testimony clip is featured in the new IWitness activity: The Nazi Genocide Against the Rome and Sinti (Gypsy) People.

Teachers in Hungary are once again invited to learn how to construct their own testimony-based classroom activities.

Michael Banhidi recalls how anti-Semitism and racial discrimination spread throughout his neighborhood in Hungary.  

Alice Herscovitch first became Executive Director of the Montreal Holocaust Memorial Centre in 2007, and it didn’t take long for her realize the incredible untapped resource that was the MHMC’s collection of 550 Holocaust survivor testimonies.“I knew we had an extraordinary collection, but for what?” Herscovitch recalled. “Why did we record these if we’re not going to do something with them?”

With the arrival of new testimonies and indexers, USC Shoah Foundation is advancing to the next stage of its Preserving the Legacy initiative.

Paul Barna speaks on the difficulty of emigrating from Europe to Canada in 1957. He reflects on his life in Montreal including his participation in the local Jewish community.  

Two months after her Auschwitz: The Past is Present trip to Poland, Karen Wells is more committed than ever to sharing what she learned and making sure the stories of survivors are not forgotten.

Jeffrey Langham oversees the management and the strategic development of the Institute's website. Prior to the Institute, Jeffrey worked at a Los Angeles-area design firm for seven years as a web designer/programmer with experience in print design and copywriting. He received his doctorate in English Literature from the University of Southern California.

The Holocaust collection in USC Shoah Foundation's Visual History Archive contains nearly 53,000 testimonies; however, only a mere six of those testimonies are from survivors who were persecuted by the Nazis for being gay: one in English, three in German, one in French, and one in Dutch. There are other gay survivors we have in the Archive, but they were persecuted by the Nazis for the greater sin of being Jewish; Gad Beck being one of them. The meager number says a lot about the history of the gay men who lived through the Nazi regime and who came out the other end willing and unafraid to speak about their lives.

Montreal Holocaust Memorial Centre (MHMC) and Sarah and Chaim Neuberger Holocaust Education Centre in Toronto announced an historic agreement to have their testimonies integrated in the Visual History Archive as part of the Institute’s Preserving the Legacy initiative.