In this brief clip Father Krikor Guerguerian is faced with a theological question that has challenged many survivors of the Armenian Genocide. The perpetrator confesses to him that he killed his father, three brothers and confiscated their house and garden and asks Guerguerian for forgiveness.

As the indexer for USC Shoah Foundation’s Armenian Genocide Testimony Collection, I have to listen carefully to hundreds of testimonies assigning keywords to each minute so that these stories will be accessible in the Visual History Archive. Now just in time for the 101st anniversary of the Armenian Genocide we will be integrating an additional 155 indexed testimonies into the Archive. I thought this would be a fitting time to highlight some of the most interesting aspects of the 245 testimonies that will be available in the Visual History Archive Online.

This month – National Poetry Month in the U.S. – is a great time to explore just how powerful words can be.  When it comes to understanding difficult moments in history, poetry and writing can help students process and express their own thoughts about the world. Explore these three ways you can bring poetry into your classroom using tools from Facing History’s partner, USC Shoah Foundation – The Institute for Visual History and Education.

Guest blogger Stacey Perlman is a Communications Writer at Facing History and Ourselves.

Holocaust survivor Percy Kaye reads a poem he wrote about the March of the Living, an annual Holocaust remembrance walk for students. April is National Poetry Month.

On Tuesday, April 19, Celina Biniaz and Edith Umugiraneza will read poetry they’ve written about their experiences during the Holocaust and the Rwandan Genocide, respectively, in “When Memories Unfold: Poetry After Genocide.”

Growing up, David Cook heard tales of his grandfather’s time in the service during World War II ­-- particularly how he had helped liberate Buchenwald, a Nazi concentration camp in Germany.Though his grandfather passed away in 2001, this past semester, Cook had the opportunity to dive deeper into his story and World War II in his “History of the Holocaust” course taught by Professor Adam R. Seipp, USC Shoah Foundation’s first-ever Texas A&M Teaching Fellow.

​USC Shoah Foundation’s consultant in Ukraine Anna Lenchovska shared the resources of USC Shoah Foundation at a roundtable discussion for educators at the Ukraine National Museum’s Memorial to the Victims of Holodomor in Kyiv on April 7.

Ukrainian survivor Alexander Contract reflects on the Holocaust and the terrible atrocities that the world faced and continues to face all around the world. He hopes that all people can live in peace across the world.

 Lemyel Amirian touches on the power of courage. The Armenians of Van and the surrounding regions took extraordinary measures to defend themselves – and, like Mr. Amirian, fortunately, many survived to share their stories. 

Elsie Taft recalls the Great Fire of Smyna (Izmir) in September 1922 and how she was saved by American sailors.

Before he made his major league debut in 1947 breaking the color barrier in baseball, Jackie Robinson was standing up to injustice and discrimination. Holocaust camp liberator Floyd Dade remembers when his fellow serviceman, Robinson refused to sit in the back of the bus

USC Shoah Foundation published 185 Armenian Genocide testimonies in the Visual History Archive on Friday, nearly tripling the size of the Institute’s Armenian Genocide collection.

Armenian Genocide scholar Richard Hovannisian speaks about Turkish denial of the Armenian Genocide in an interview with J. Michael Hagopian in 1975.

POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews premiered an original short film about the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising featuring testimony from the Visual History Archive.

USC Shoah Foundation Center for Advanced Genocide Research will host the international conference “A Conflict? Genocide and Resistance in Guatemala,” at the University of Southern California, Sept. 11-14, 2016. The scholars profiled in this series were each selected to present their research at the conference.As a 2014 graduate of Tufts University, Miguel Zamora-Mills is one of the youngest scholars selected to present at the Center’s Guatemala conference.

Twenty-two and 71 years after surviving genocide, Edith Umugiraneza and Celina Biniaz, respectively, shared poetry they wrote about their experiences at a special event organized by DEFY, USC Shoah Foundation’s student association.

Holocaust survivor Anna Geslewitz reads a poem she wrote in 1967 reflecting on the Holocaust.

Every year, some of Angela Gottesburen’s high school seniors enter an essay contest held by the Midwest Center for Holocaust Education. This year, the students are using testimony from USC Shoah Foundation’s Visual History Archive to help craft their responses.The 2016 prompt for the Midwest Center’s annual White Rose Student Essay Contest, open to 8th-12th graders, asks students to explore how one Jewish survivor was affected by the Nazis’ anti-Jewish propaganda.

Helena Horowitz describes her struggle to hide the fact that she was Jewish as a young girl. This clip is part of the new IWitness activity Narratives of Identity: In the Open or In the Shadows?

The newest activity in IWitness draws on testimonies of Holocaust survivors to spark students’ reflection on how identity, and the struggle to hide it, can affect people from all walks of life.

Professor Dan Stone, Royal Holloway, University of London, offered a global perspective of the origins and history of concentration camps.

In this lecture, Professor Atina Grossmann addresses a transnational Holocaust story that remarkably – despite several decades of intensive scholarly and public attention to the history and memory of the Shoah – has remained essentially untold, marginalized in both historiography and commemoration.

USC Shoah Foundation is expanding its efforts to develop educational resources about the Armenian Genocide with the creation of a new position devoted to the IWitness Armenia program.

Rafael Grosz describes his memory of Passover as a child in Bergen-Belsen. 

Passover, Bergen-Belsen, 1945. These two thoughts do not belong together: Bergen-Belsen, the epitome of captivity; Passover, the celebration of freedom from slavery.

Armenian Genocide Survivor Hovsana Kumjian sings the ballad Der Zor Chollerende (Desert of Der Zor). During the genocide victims sang this song in Turkish while on the forced marches into the Syrian Desert. The song is often from a child’s perspective and describes violent scenes and feelings of hopelessness. Kumjian states she sings this song in memory for the victims, every April 24, the anniversary of the Armenian Genocide. Kumjian is a survivor of the death march from Kilis, Turkey. English Translation of Der Zor Chollerende

Aleksan Markaryan’s crystal-clear memory of the genocide against the Armenian people in 1915 has given him the distinction of being the last survivor interviewed by the Armenian Film Foundation for its collection of Armenian Genocide survivor and witness testimonies.

USC Shoah Foundation Center for Advanced Genocide Research will host the international conference “A Conflict? Genocide and Resistance in Guatemala,” at the University of Southern California, Sept. 11-14, 2016. The scholars profiled in this series were each selected to present their research at the conference.Heather Vrana’s presentation “H.I.J.O.S.: A New Politics and Memory Beyond Reconciliation” will focus on the next generation of activists in Guatemala.

Edith Kaufman describes her thoughts as she stayed at a hospital at the Ravensbruck camp during Passover. Although she could not formally celebrate the holiday, she refused to eat bread as a gesture of defiance.