In 2015 , I traveled to Guatemala with a small team from USC Shoah Foundation to train staff from a local organization called the Fundación de Antropología Forence de Guatemala (FAFG) to begin collecting voices from survivors to the Guatemalan Genocide.

Henry Flescher describes the optimism he had on a daily basis and how that drove him to fight for his survival while imprisoned in multiple concentration camps including Buchenwald and Gross Rosen. 

The practice of some Holocaust survivors sharing their stories many times throughout their lives was the focus of the international conference “Bearing Witness More than Once: How Media Institutions, Media and Time Shape Shoah Survivors’ Testimonies” at Humboldt University in Berlin

Holocaust rescuer Irene Opdyke gave her testimony to Jewish Family and Children's Services of San Francisco in 1993 and again to USC Shoah Foundation in 1995. Here, she speaks in each interview about why she shares her story.

Erica reads a poem she wrote saying goodbye to the friends she made at Bergen-Belsen and hoping they meet again in Israel. April is National Poetry Month.

IWitness celebrated a milestone in March: the most registrations ever in a single month. The milestone comes at a busy time for IWitness.

Rwandan Tutsi Genocide survivor Edith Umugiraneza describes her first contact with the Interahamwe militia, which was threatening violence against Tutsis.

In an effort to create a deeper engagement with educators online, USC Shoah Foundation’s IWitness hosts Twitter chat's on the 2nd and 4th Wednesday of every month. Meet fellow IWitness educators, ask questions directly to the IWitness team and join the IWitness community.Follow the IWitness twitter account @USCIWitness and to join the chat follow and send tweets with #IWitnessChat.

In an effort to create a deeper engagement with educators online, USC Shoah Foundation’s IWitness hosts Twitter chat's on the 2nd and 4th Wednesday of every month. Meet fellow IWitness educators, ask questions directly to the IWitness team and join the IWitness community.

In honor of Genocide Awareness Month. join USC Shoah Foundation’s Student Organization DEFY and USC Shoah Foundation Center for Advanced Genocide Research for “When Memories Unfold: Poetry After Genocide.”

From April to July 1994, one of the most brutal genocides in human history occurred in Rwanda. It claimed the lives of 800,000 men, women, and children, most of whom were of Tutsi descent. Kwibuka, the official anniversary of the Rwandan Tutsi Genocide, is observed every year on April 7. Explore this selection of testimony clips of survivors and eyewitnesses to the genocide from the Visual History Archive. 

To help introduce your students to the Genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda explore testimonies and activities in IWitness.

Once Emilie Garrigou-Kempton joined the team of USC Shoah Foundation Center for Advanced Genocide Research last month as academic relations and outreach officer, she began to realize the connections she already has to the Institute.Professor Armand Abecassis, who was recently interviewed for the Institute’s Testimonies from North Africa and the Middle East Collection, was her advisor in graduate school. And her husband’s distant relative, a Holocaust survivor, gave her testimony to USC Shoah Foundation years ago.

​Once students have put the finishing touches on their videos and submitted them to their teachers, it’s time to start judging.

While the average USC student was dragging themselves out of bed to make it to their first class after Spring Break, I was--rather jet-lagged--sitting in an 800 year old room cloaked in paintings of old intellectuals and world renowned writers in a tiny corridor of Hertford College at Oxford University, wondering how on Earth I could be so lucky to miss a week of school to hang out at one of the oldest, most prestigious centers of learning in the history of Western Civilization.

USC Shoah Foundation Center for Advanced Genocide Research is seeking applicants for three fellowships until Friday, April 15 and Sunday, May 1.

Itka Zygmuntowicz recites a poem she wrote abou her experience during the Holocaust. She says Hitler could never take away her creativity or her dream to be a writer. April is National Poetry Month.

When Jennifer Binley entered college, she knew she was interested in dedicating herself to finding a way to stop mass atrocities around the world. The international relations major quickly joined USC STAND, an anti-genocide club she eventually became president of, and began interning at USC Shoah Foundation.“I found the interests of [USC STAND] often correlate to the events and goals of USC Shoah Foundation,” Binley said of her dedication to both organizations.

Stephen Smith will give a keynote address and New Dimensions in Testimony will be demoed at the festival's Alternate Realities interactive exhibition.

USC Shoah Foundation Center for Advanced Genocide Research's Research Program Officer Martha Stroud will present a paper at the symposium "Narratives and Testimonies After Conflict: The Second Generation" at Georgia State University in Atlanta, Georgia on April 18, 2016.

Surrounded by his family, Sam Harris explains why he wanted to tell his story. Live audiences will be able to have a virtual conversation with Sam as part of USC Shoah Foundation's New Dimensions in Testimony project.

Michigan student Brandon Bartley shares how testimony inspired him when he participated in the IWitness Detroit program last summer.

Holocaust survivor Helen Lazar explains that the human will to live is so strong that it can keep you going even in the darkest of times.

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.