Summer might be a break for students, but as an educator, I know teachers are busy enhancing their skills and knowledge to improve their curriculum and students’ overall experience in their classrooms. As you contemplate lesson plans for the upcoming year, will you be planning a unit or lesson about the Holocaust? Do you feel you have enough knowledge about the topic to teach it well? How will you introduce your students to that history and experiences? What readings and resources will you use? What approach will you take with this sensitive topic?

A thematic seminar that will interweave content related to both the Holocaust and present-day experiences of intolerance and persecution. The seminar is inquiry-based, inviting teachers to acknowledge and incorporate the culture of their students into their curriculum and the broader classroom experience. The program takes a writing based approach to Holocaust and social justice education. Speakers and events will include:

USC Shoah Foundation has established four “mirror sites” for the Visual History Archive, guaranteeing that a fully-functional Visual History Archive will exist in perpetuity outside its home at the University of Southern California.

The new program includes a toolkit on IWitness and an diversity summit in winter 2017.

Holocaust survivor Miriam Brysk describes the discrimination she experienced as a woman in college and in her post-doctorate work.

Omer Bartov, the 2017 Sara and Asa Shapiro Scholar in Residence and John P. Birkelund Distinguished Professor of European History at Brown University, gave the Sara and Asa Shapiro Scholar Annual Lecture at the USC Shoah Foundation Center for Advanced Genocide Research focusing on his upcoming book about the East Galician town of Buczacz, which transformed from a site of coexistence, where Poles, Ukrainians, and Jews had lived side-by-side for centuries, into a site of genocide.

USC Shoah Foundation Executive Director Stephen Smith is an executive producer of the film, and most of the survivors featured in the film also gave their testimonies to USC Shoah Foundation’s Visual History Archive.

After hundreds of motorcyclists ride through Rhode Island on June 9, they will sit down to a Shabbat dinner and learn about USC Shoah Foundation’s New Dimensions in Testimony.

Charlotte talks about Althea Jenkins, the woman who taught her to speak English in Providence, Rhode Island. Althea was a great teacher and loved Charlotte and her family.

The art is black and white and full color; impressionistic and starkly realistic; hopeful for the future and filled with sorrow for the past. And it was all inspired by testimony from the Visual History Archive.

Enrico discusses June 10, 1940, the day Italy declared war on Britain and France. That day, the Germans swept the city to take the Jews from their homes. He was able to escape hours before he was to be caught. 

As it nears two years of official programming, the IWitness Detroit program has changed the face of testimony-based education in Michigan.

The grand prize winner of the 2017 IWitness Video Challenge, by Yu Jing Chen, Alana Chandler and Natalia Wang of Walter Payton College Preparatory, Chicago. The project inspires students to illustrate and share the various traits that make up their identities.

Second place winner of the 2017 IWitness Video Challenge. By Acadia Grantham

Third place winner of the 2017 IWitness Video Challenge. By Shayna Kantor

A group of students from Chicago who inspired their fellow students to embrace each other’s unique identity has won the 2017 IWitness Video Challenge sponsored by USC Shoah Foundation.

Los Angeles, June 13, 2017 – A group of students from Chicago who inspired their fellow students to embrace each other’s unique identity has won the 2017 IWitness Video Challenge sponsored by USC Shoah Foundation.

There are still spots available for educators to participate in the Holocaust Educators Network Summer Seminar on Holocaust education and social justice, to be held July 23-29, 2017.

The staff at USC Shoah Foundation is saddened to learn about recent the passing of Asa Shapiro, father of board member Mickey Shapiro and Holocaust survivor.

When Park Avenue Synagogue began preparing for its women’s trip to Poland, they turned to IWitness to help travelers prepare for the historical context of the trip.

USC Shoah Foundation’s newest testimonies of Nanjing Massacre survivors and its New Dimensions in Testimony interview of Nanjing Massacre survivor Xia Shuqin are drawing closer to being made available to the public.

Jewish survivor Harry Rosenbach shares a story about what he did with one of his most prized posessions while he was attempting to flee Germany as a refugee.

IWitness will be one of several educational resources demonstrated to teachers at the Eva and Eugene Schlesinger Teacher Training Endowed Workshop July 10-14, 2017, at California State University Long Beach.

Henry explains how difficult it was to survive in a new country a young refugee.

Stroud’s book chapter is titled “Rethinking Resilience: Considerations on Resilience in Indonesia After 1965.”

Lily Schwarzschild describes helping Holocaust survivors rehabilitate at a displaced persons (DP) camp in Germany.

USC Shoah Foundation Chief Technology Officer Sam Gustman will give a talk at the annual American Libraries Association conference this Saturday in Chicago.

Zdenka describes First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt's visit to the Fort Ontario refugee camp and what she did to ensure that all the children in the camp got their education.

While students across America enjoy their summer vacation, the education department at USC Shoah Foundation is busily making major new features to its award-winning IWitness educational website for educators and their students that will be ready by the time school resumes in the fall.