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. For her presentation at the conference, Morna Macleod will look back on her experiences working in human rights in the final years of the Guatemalan Genocide 30 years ago.

Diana Hekimian, an active member of the Armenian community in Los Angeles, found an original copy of one of the earliest reports of the 1915 genocide in Armenia: "The Diyarbekir Massacres and Kurdish Atrocities," by Thomas Mugerditchian.

Yael Avner and her interviewer observe two minutes of silence at the sound of an air raid siren during Israel's commemoration of Yom HaShoah, Holocaust Remembrance Day.

USC Shoah Foundation’s ability to capture and preserve important information about each testimony has gotten a critical update.

Liberator David Zahler describes what it was like being an army medic during World War II. May is Military Appreciation Month.

Holocaust Remembrance Day, or Yom HaShoah as it’s known in Hebrew, commemorates and honors the victims and survivors of the Holocaust. This year, people around the world will remember the victims of the Holocaust May 4-5, 2016.

For public policy student Ge (Gina) Jin, coming all the way to Los Angeles from China for graduate school meant a lot of changes. Luckily, she found a community of like-minded people at USC Shoah Foundation.“As an international student, we always have a rough time getting used to life here in the United States,” she said. “So I think this is a really nice home.”What allowed Jin to feel so at home was the diverse group of people working at the Institute.

USC Shoah Foundation's educational platform, IWitness continues hosting free webinars for educators throughout 2016. These webinars aim to provide a more in-depth and interactive approach to learning how to teach with testimony.

Across the United States and in Europe, USC Shoah Foundation is helping to commemorate Yom HaShoah, Holocaust Remembrance Day, on May 4 and 5.

Freddie Kotek is the Senior Vice President of Investment Partnership Division at Atlas Resource Partners, L.P. Kotek is the son and son-in-law of four survivors of the Holocaust and currently sits on USC Shoah Foundation’s Next Generation Council. Kotek is actively involved at Solomon Schechter Day School of Bergen County, where his three daughters graduated, and currently serves on the Board of Trustees. Through a fund set up in memory of his parents, SSDS Bergen is provided with funding for all aspects of Holocaust and genocide education.

Marion remembers a big jubilation in Times Square on VE Day in New York City on May 8, 1945. Everyone was singing and dancing and many people put up their hands in the shape of a "V" for victory.

As the son of two survivors of the Shoah and the husband of a daughter of two survivors, identifying as the Next Generation has been the essence of who I am. It is the prism through which I see and evaluate all worldly events. It was particularly my father’s life that affected me the most. He truly was a “survivor." He survived the war running for his life through Russia, Siberian labor camps and other lands in Asia. He survived losing his parents, five of his sisters their husbands and children. He escaped from his hometown in the Russian sector to a displaced person camp in in the American sector. He survived as a refugee in Belgium and then as an immigrant in the United States. He survived the loss of his wife at a young age raising three children as a single parent in a foreign land.

Educators can finish the school year with a three-part online professional development course from Echoes and Reflections on teaching the Holocaust using testimony from the Visual History Archive and other primary and secondary sources.

Isabella Sayyah joined USC Shoah Foundation as a writing intern in January 2016. She graduated from USC, where she was editor-in-chief of the Daily Trojan, in December 2015 with a B.A. in International Relations and Print and Digital Journalism. She will begin attending Stanford Law School in September 2016.

Denise reflects on the night she met her husband, Ernest, at a tennis club dance after only being in England for 10 days. She says that she is glad she married a Jewish man because of his faith and values.

Denise Paluch had been to two concentration camps by the time she was four, when she was smuggled out and kept hidden with a false identity for years in occupied France. For a long time, she did not know what became of her parents and for over 50 years, she wondered what had happened to them and hoped against hope that they were still alive. Years later, the youngest of her four children, Gaby Eirew, has researched and made a free, video-recording question-prompting app to help all parents leave loving messages, information and support for their children for use after death.

A few weeks ago, a student I was interviewing for a profile I was writing on him for USC Shoah Foundation’s website said something interesting: “Growing up Jewish, the Holocaust is pretty much always there.” I could identify. As someone who went to Hebrew school twice a week, every week, from the age of 5 to 13, the Holocaust was something I was always aware of. I was taught about it frequently, both in religious and regular school.

The 2016-2017 Center Fellow at USC Shoah Foundation Center for Advanced Genocide Research will be Alexander Korb, Ph.D., director of the Stanley Burton Centre for Holocaust & Genocide Studies at the University of Leicester and scholar of the Holocaust in southeastern Europe.

In honor of the 71st anniversary of the liberation of the Sudetenland women’s forced labor camps, listen to the testimony of Gerda Frieberg, who returned to Trutnov, Czech Republic, for the unveiling of a monument recognizing the suffering of 5,000 Jewish young women imprisoned there from 1940- May 8, 1945.  In addition, listen to the testimonies of interviewees who survived the concentration camps in the area of Trutnov and who performed textile forced labor under difficult living conditions.

Sabina discusses her transfer from the Sosnowiec-Dulag camp to Gabersdorf. She traveled by train with a group of women and was told that she would either be working in a cotton factory or live through the war.

Natalie talks about the last time she saw her mother, when she was taken away with a group of young girls on a wagon. Natalie was taken to a train station where she was transfered from Jaworzno to Sosnowiec-Dulag, with only the socks and shoes on her feet.

Helga discusses her time at the Gabersdorf camp. She talks about her experiences working in a textile factory, with about 360 girls. While working one night, she injured her hand terribly in the machine she worked on and was terribly hurt for some time. 

Sally discusses her difficult time living in the Parschnitz camp. She remembers going through a camp selection for Dr. Mengele and trying her absolute best to stay out of the way of the guards. Hope was the only thing that kept her going and she believed she still had a future. 

Manya describes the terrible conditions of Kratzau concentration camp in Czechoslovakia.

Sala shows a photograph of herself wearing the rubber apron with the Yellow Star as a uniform during her forced labor assignment in the Gabersdorf concentration camp in Czechoslovakia.

Eta describes the physical condition of Hungarian prisoners from Auschwitz upon their arrival at Ober-Alstadt camp.

Esther describes humiliation she experienced and additional work she was made to perform at Ober-Alstadt.

Sala describes the struggle for survival at Schatzlar concentration camp and how she and her friends helped each other to survive.

Tosia describes the liberation of Gabersdorf concentration camp by the Soviet armed forces.

A new monument honoring victims of women’s slave labor camps, most of whom were Polish Jewish teenagers at the time, was unveiled on May 9th, 2016, the 71st anniversary of their liberation, in Trutnov, Czech Republic. The camps, part of Organization Shmelt, were located by textile mills and included: Gabersdorf, Parshnitz, Schatzlar, Ober Alstadt, Bernsdorf, Arnau, Dunkenthal, Hohenelbe, Ober Hohenelbe, Leibau and Bausnitz. After the Warsaw Ghetto uprising, they became concentration camps grouped under the administration of Gross-Rosen.