In commemoration of the Armenian Genocide Centennial, the USC Shoah Foundation will be co-sponsoring "Sharing Our Stories: Voices of Survivors." The event will bring together a panel of speakers representing the Holocaust and the Armenian, Bosnian, Cambodian, and Rwandan genocides. The speakers will share their personal experiences, and their paths toward healing, forgiveness, and re-establishing livelihoods in Los Angeles.

USC’s Human Rights and Genocide Awareness Week concluded last night with a moving discussion of women’s experiences during and after genocide, featuring survivors of the Guatemalan, Armenian and Rwandan Genocides.

As the world commemorates the 100th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide today, the stories of 60 survivors and witnesses have been given new life.

In some ways, the one minute we spend with Elsie Hagopian Taft – 56 seconds, to be precise – is a wrenching primer on the Armenian Genocide. It is a poignant and powerful evocation of an innermost ring of Dante’s inferno, and a courageous explanation of why the Armenian Genocide matters today.

You never know what you are going to discover in the Visual History Archive. Each one of the 53,000 testimonies in the Archive tells a different story of life before, during and after the individual’s experience with genocide.

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.

 Three women tell their stories of struggle, courage, and resilience, and share their vision for women in rebuilding societies broken by genocide. Join us for a thuought-provoking night of discussion exploring women's integral role in post-conflict development. This event is presented in honor of USC Genocide Awareness month. 

Over the last few days I’ve overheard my grandmother and father talk endlessly about Celia Tiano, an Auschwitz survivor from Salonika, Greece, their next-door neighbor on 7th Avenue -- a quiet block in the Hyde Park area of L.A., during the 1950s and 60s. After more than 40 years, my family has reconnected with Celia -- through testimony. We were able to make this connection because of a film project I had been working on for the Student Voices Short Film Contest.

Michael Hagopian conducted almost all of the interviews in the Armenian Genocide Testimony collection.  After he died in December 2010, the Armenian Film Foundation received a request to interview Almas Boghosian, in Whitinsville, Massachusetts. Her granddaughter Taline had interviewed her in 2000, but her family wanted Almas to be interviewed again for this collection. I called a cameraman I knew from my previous work with the BBC and we went to Almas’ house, and met Almas’ grandson Bruce Boghosian and his wife, Laura.  

To view the entire Armenian Genocide Testimony Collection, log into the  Visual History Archive to explore the full-length eyewitness testimonies.

One Day in Auschwitz is an hour-long documentary produced by USC Shoah Foundation and originally broadcast on Discovery on Jan. 27, 2015. It follows Holocaust survivor Kitty Hart-Moxon as she returns to Auschwitz-Birkenau with two high school students.

Born into an affluent German Jewish family, Henry Morgenthau, Sr. was raised in New York, where he attended school and received his training as an attorney at Columbia. An early supporter of Woodrow Wilson, Morgenthau was tapped by the then newly-elected president to become the United States Ambassador for the Ottoman Empire.

Over the last several years, I’ve had the distinct privilege to work with the recorded materials collected by the late Dr. J Michael Hagopian. A survivor of the Armenian Genocide himself, Michael had the foresight to capture the voices of those who witnessed the atrocities first hand.  Later this month, the USC Shoah Foundation will make a group of 60 of these interviews available through the Visual History Archive, ensuring that these recollections will be preserved in perpetuity, for future generations.  Michael would have certainly been proud to witness this accomplishment.

The murder of extended families, the targeting of community leaders, the critical role of eyewitnesses--each of these factors surfaces in Haigas Bonapart’s interview. These tactics are all too familiar to those of us who study the crime of genocide and the strategies employed by its perpetrators. By destroying communal ties and eliminating those individuals who might rally a group in self-defense, civilians under systematic assault are made much more vulnerable to isolation and mass violence.

Dr. Ugur Üngör began his lecture yesterday at The Forum in USC’s Tutor Campus Center by asking a question that has plagued genocide researchers for generations.

Google Translate is now embedded in the IWitness website, making it possible, for the first time, for non-English speaking users to view the site in their own language.

Los Angeles, April 1, 2015 – To commemorate the 100th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide in April, USC Shoah Foundation — The Institute for Visual History and Education will debut a month-long series of testimony clips from survivors and witnesses of the 20th century’s first genocide.One clip a day are being released on the Institute’s website at sfi.usc.edu through the last day of April, which is Genocide Awareness and Prevention Month. Included on the month-long timeline will be the April 24 anniversary of the Armenian Genocide’s onset.

Music is the purest form of communication. It transcends language and ignores the passage of time. It can be euphoric and elegiac, subtle and sublime. It joyously welcomes life and mournfully greets death. It can provide glimmers of hope and comfort in a world devoid of hope and comfort.

Johanna Söderholm has been in high demand since she returned from Auschwitz: The Past is Present.

Auschwitz: The Past is Present has left Australian teacher Christine Cole with a new motto and new motivation for imparting the lessons of the Holocaust on her students.

For two full days in June 2010, while the camera was rolling in Thousand Oaks in the Hagopian’s living room, I had the privilege of being behind the camera while the late Jacob Michael Hagopian was in front of it -- the whole time.

USC Shoah Foundation and Discovery Education will host an interactive virtual experience for middle- and high-school students worldwide to provide a deeper understanding of the Holocaust.