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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. Batsabe Martinez Manzanero, a Ph.D. student in Social Anthropology at El Colegio de Michoacán, will speak about the Guatemalan Mayas who live in Mexico, specifically at a former refugee camp known as Maya Tecún.
/ Tuesday, July 5, 2016
When eighth-grader Allison Vandal saw a classmate run into the classroom crying, she did the best thing she could think of to help: She wrote the classmate a poem about the power of words. That simple act of kindness would soon grow into something much bigger. Along with her friends and classmates Maya Montell and Caroline Waters, Allison started the Poets Undercover Guild (PUG), a society at Readington Middle School in New Jersey where students give or receive poetry to each other to build an inclusive community within the school.
/ Thursday, July 7, 2016
As seventh-grade students at Rocky Heights Middle School in Highlands Ranch, Colorado, Amanda Gin and Chloe Voss are still very dependent on their parents. However, they realized that being able to count on adults was a privilege not every child had. “Most of the children at the foster [center] were our age,” Amanda said. “Seeing as how Chloe and I, and many other teens, rely and depend on parents for so many things, it’s hard to imagine life without them. Yet the kids at the foster shelter are able to go through that every day.”
/ Monday, July 11, 2016
By Mahima Verma Nárcisz Vida always had a desire to help individuals who faced discrimination through the power of education. Today, Vida empowers students and teachers to combat hatred and stand against intolerance through testimony. Vida leads the education programs at Zachor Foundation for Social Remembrance in Budapest, Hungary. She started as a volunteer working closely with Zachor Foundation founder and director, Andrea Szőnyi, who is also USC Shoah Foundation’s international training consultant in Hungary,
/ Wednesday, July 13, 2016
USC Shoah Foundation records the testimonies of genocide survivors so the world will never forget their stories. Eighth-grade student Andrea Chang decided to do something similar for her community: document the stories of the elderly. As part of the third-annual IWitness Video Challenge, Andrea created a video demonstrating her project, in which she spoke to the elderly and shared their stories. Her video, “Tell Me Your Story,” took third place in the national competition, landing her a $500 scholarship.
/ Friday, July 15, 2016
In a new French book about the deportation of Jews from France during the Holocaust, authors Alexandre Doulut, Serge Klarsfeld, and Sandrine Labeau used USC Shoah Foundation’s Visual History Archive to help identify survivors. The book, 1945, les rescapés d'Auschwitz témoignent (which roughly translates to 1945, Auschwitz survivors testify), the authors document the testimony of one survivor from each of the 82 deportation convoys that departed from France.
/ Monday, July 18, 2016
USC Shoah Foundation interviewed Nanjing Massacre survivor Xie Guiying on June 4, 2016, in Nanjing, China, where she currently lives in a senior home. Xie is now 92 years old and in very good health. Xie never received a proper education, however, she is a wonderful storyteller and still has a very vivid memory.
/ Wednesday, July 20, 2016
In February, eighth grade S. Canton Scholars Academy student Keven Kim came to realization: Compared to others, his life was quite comfortable and convenient. Though Keven appreciated his fortune, he decided to do something to help those who didn’t have the same advantages he did. “All around the world, there are those who live a relaxed life while others struggle to receive a single meal,” he said. “Seeing this struggle through my own eyes, I had decided to inform others of this desperate struggle and how to support those in need.”
/ Friday, July 22, 2016
We are sad to learn of the passing of Helen Colin, a Holocaust survivor who had the distinction of being the first survivor to speak on camera after being liberated from the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp.
/ Monday, July 25, 2016
There are many Holocaust survivors who wrote after the war about their experiences, but Beatrice Mousli Bennett is focusing her attention on writers who are far less studied: those who continued to write even while they faced occupation, deportations and oppression in the throes of World War II. Bennett is the USC Shoah Foundation Center for Advanced Genocide Research’s 2016 Faculty Summer Research Fellow. The fellowship provides support for a USC faculty member to conduct research in the Visual History Archive while in residence at the Center for one month.
/ Tuesday, August 2, 2016
After seventh grade teacher Rebekah Lang taught the Holocaust for the first time last year, she wasn’t satisfied with her performance. So, she turned to Echoes and Reflections to improve her and her students’ learning experience the next time around.
/ Thursday, July 28, 2016
The staff of the USC Shoah Foundation Center for Advanced Genocide Research had a dilemma on their hands. They could only choose one applicant to award the 2016 Graduate Summer Research Fellowship – but they couldn’t bring themselves to turn away their runner-up, Piotr Florczyk, because his proposal was so fascinating. It’s easy to see why. Florczyk, a PhD candidate in the USC Literature and Creative Writing program, intends to write poetry inspired by the testimonies of Polish Holocaust survivors in the archive.
/ Thursday, August 4, 2016
Edward Łukawer was a famous Polish Jewish economist who lectured at the Krakow University of Economics. Now, four students and a professor at that same school are working on developing the material for a movie on him using the testimony he gave to USC Shoah Foundation’s Visual History Archive.
/ Tuesday, August 9, 2016
After Pamela Applebaum attended USC Shoah Foundation’s Ambassadors for Humanity gala in Detroit last year, she knew the Institute was something she wanted to be a part of.  “We immediately embraced the importance of ensuring the vital preservation of the darkest chapter in Jewish history with the enduring vision of connecting the next generation to a modern perspective of this past to better grapple with today’s complicated, challenging, and belligerent environment,” she said.
board of councilors / Thursday, August 11, 2016
Elise Garibaldi had heard her grandparents’ story of falling in love while surviving the Holocaust countless times throughout her life. With her new book Roses in a Forbidden Garden: A Holocaust Love Story, that story is now being shared with the world.
/ Monday, August 15, 2016
Three years ago, Lacey Schauwecker became interested in the Guatemalan Genocide through work she was doing with USC Shoah Foundation. Now, Schauwecker is back for four weeks as a 2016 Summer Graduate Research Fellow at the Center for Advanced Genocide Research utilizing the Institute’s Guatemalan testimonies.
/ Thursday, August 18, 2016
Kim Kerwin was one of a select group of teachers who participated in USC Shoah Foundation’s first three-day ITeach Institute in Michigan last week, and she walked away from the training inspired to incorporate testimony into her classes at St. Fabian Catholic School.
/ Monday, August 22, 2016
Mélanie Péron discovered the power of personal stories the first time she was assigned to teach the Holocaust at the University of Pennsylvania. She had started out the course just trying to teach dry historical facts, and it didn’t go very well. “It was one of the hardest experiences ever,” Péron said. “It was horrendous. My students were bored, I was scared. Finally I said, ‘We’re going to do something else.’”
/ Thursday, August 25, 2016
Today’s younger generation is often known for having short attention spans. They want their news short and immediately. But it’s for exactly this reason that Texas A&M senior Anna Davis enjoyed listening to testimony through USC Shoah Foundation’s Visual History Archive.
/ Monday, August 29, 2016
Guatemalan hip-hop artist Rebeca Lane will perform at Bovard Auditorium Tuesday, Sept. 13, as part of an event hosted by Visions and Voices and co-sponsored by USC Shoah Foundation and El Centro Chicano. The event will be a part of the Center for Advanced Genocide Research’s conference, “A Conflict? Genocide and Resistance in Guatemala.” Lane is a feminist rapper who is breaking down boundaries in the Latin American hip-hop scene by challenging traditional gender norms and speaking out about Guatemalan’s violent past.
/ Thursday, September 1, 2016
Students who are learning about the Holocaust have probably heard a lot about antisemitism as it manifested itself in Europe in the 1930s and ‘40s. What they might not realize, however, is that antisemitism still affects students just like them today, right here in America.
/ Tuesday, September 6, 2016
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.
cagr / Thursday, September 8, 2016
Eighth grader Aaron Fig thought carefully when it came time to choose a charitable cause to support for his bar mitzvah earlier this year. When his mom suggested USC Shoah Foundation, it spoke to him, he said, and he enlisted his friends and family to help. “I looked at the website and I thought it was really cool,” Aaron said. “What really stuck with me was the fact that [USC Shoah Foundation] is saving memories. It’s filming people saying their stories that will be archived forever.”
/ Monday, September 19, 2016
Three eighth graders from Kansas have won the Lowell Milken Center for Unsung Heroes’ 2016 Discovery Award for their video about Armenian Genocide rescuer Emma Darling Cushman. The students and their teacher, Nathan McAlister, drew on USC Shoah Foundation for support and resources to help their passion project come to life.
/ Thursday, September 22, 2016
Holocaust survivors often visit USC Shoah Foundation – but not many come armed with ideas and research for developing a game to teach students about the Holocaust, like Sigmund Tobias did this September.
/ Monday, September 26, 2016
The students in Kristen Link’s high school German classes in Illinois learn a lot more than a new language. With the help of Echoes and Reflections, they also learn about one of the darkest chapters in German history. Link has taught the Holocaust as part of her German classes for over 15 years, but said she has felt for a while that something was missing from her teaching. She thought that there had to be a way to make her teaching on the subject more effective.
/ Wednesday, September 28, 2016
Each year, USC Shoah Foundation welcomes a new intern from the Austrian Holocaust Memorial Service to work at the Institute as an alternative to his compulsory military service. Just a few weeks ago, Austrian intern number 13 Andro Ofenheimer started his ten months at the Institute.
/ Friday, September 30, 2016
Like many educators who use Echoes and Reflections to teach about the Holocaust, Koty Zelinka Cole first heard about the program through a colleague. Now, she is the one recommending it to other educators who are looking for resources to help them teach the Holocaust and World War II.
/ Tuesday, October 4, 2016
Jiří Kocian started out using the Visual History Archive himself as a researcher. Now, he’s helping others discover testimony as the coordinator of the Malach Center for Visual History at Charles University in Prague.
/ Thursday, October 6, 2016
Social studies teacher Molly Gale learned the ins and outs of IWitness at USC Shoah Foundation’s IWitness Summer Institute in Farmington Hills, Mich., this August. But what she appreciated most, she said, was the time she was given to delve deeply into IWitness and work on her own lesson plans before the training was even over. “Usually [at teacher training workshops] they just throw information at you, but here they presented it and then we had hours to work,” she said. By the end of the three-day workshop, “I had practical lessons written and left ready to roll.”
/ Tuesday, October 11, 2016

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