Learn to Use Digital Teacher Tools in IWitness. Join us on August 17th at 4PM PDT Learn to use a virtual classroom to engage students in powerful learning through testimonies of witnesses to 20th century history Learn to monitor and assess student work For more information and to RSVP for this webinar

Entering its eleventh week of operation, USC Shoah Foundation’s 100 Days to Inspire Respect campaign will take some time to focus on violence and extremism.

One would think that the grandson of four Polish Holocaust survivors would have an in-depth knowledge of the Shoah, but it was quite the contrary. The Holocaust was a topic that was never discussed when I was growing up. When it was introduced, it was in the most unconventional way, through satire film and television. I knew this was just a facade draped over the painful truth.

Much of the content is geared toward addressing some of the many conflicts that came to light during and in the wake of the neo-Nazi, white supremacist rallies in Charlottesville, Virginia, on August 15, 2017, such as the importance of speaking out against hate, promoting tolerance and acceptance, and embracing diversity.

A public lecture by Philippe Sands (University College London) Introduction by Prof. Hannah Garry (Director of USC Gould International Human Rights Clinic)

Shael Rosenbaum works in real estate development and management and is the President of Fremont Street Holdings. Shael served as the National Chair of the Canadian Young Adult March of the Living and is currently the Chair of the UJA Federation Sarah and Chaim Neuberger Holocaust Education Centre in Toronto. Shael was also the Master of Ceremonies at the largest rally against antisemitism in Canadian history. Most recently, he graduated from the Joshua Institute. Shael obtained a degree in Biological and Cultural Anthropology from the University of Western Ontario.

USC Shoah Foundation was invited to give a presentation about its IWalk program at Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum’s international education conference, “Awareness-Responsibility-Future,” earlier this week.

The opening panel of the second day of the USC Shoah Foundation Center for Advanced Genocide Research’s Digital Holocaust Studies conference will focus on the innovative ways researchers are representing the Holocaust visually, using the latest data visualization techniques and tools.

The USC Shoah Foundation Center for Advanced Genocide Research invites research proposals from USC faculty members and graduate students for its Summer 2017 Research Fellowships.

USC Shoah Foundation Center for Advanced Genocide Research’s 2017 Sara and Asa Shapiro Scholar in Residence Omer Bartov began his residence today with a Facebook Live interview about his work.

USC Shoah Foundation’s Junior Interns witnessed a disturbing example of modern antisemitism firsthand during their trip to Budapest in June. And they have something to say about it.

The USC Shoah Foundation Center for Advanced Genocide Research organized a symposium in the Fall to honor the work of leading Holocaust scholar David Cesarani from Great Britain, who died just weeks after being named by the USC Shoah Foundation the inaugural Sara and Asa Shapiro Scholar in Residence. These are the remarks made by David Silberklang at the event.

Martha Stroud, PhD, is the Associate Director and Senior Research Officer of the USC Dornsife Center for Advanced Genocide Research. She manages the day-to-day operations of the Center, which advances innovative interdisciplinary research on the Holocaust and other genocides and promotes use of the Visual History Archive in research and teaching. She joined the Center in 2015 after earning her PhD in Medical Anthropology at UC Berkeley.

On August 24, 2017, scholars from Latin America presented their initial findings on their use of the Visual History Archive and mapped out potential avenues of inquiry focusing on Holocaust survivors who eventually settled in Latin America. This presentation is one of the outcomes of a "scholar in residence" fellowship that brings together scholars from a variety of disciplines to collaborate on a research project at USC for Interdisciplinary Research Week.

A new IWitness activity focuses on the complex situation in Hungary after liberation. Students interpret and evaluate different behaviors exemplified through the testimony and film clips and think about their past and present correlations.

USC Shoah Foundation Center for Advanced Genocide Research and the USC Casden Institute for the Study of the Jewish Role in American Life invite proposals for their 2018 International Conference.

Educators in the Detroit area and Glendale, Calif., attended professional development workshops on IWitness in the first months of 2017 in order to learn more about how to incorporate testimony into their teaching.

After a semester-long study of Holocaust survivor narratives, four students in Professor Therkel Straede’s class at the University of Southern Denmark presented the short videos they made in IWitness to an audience of faculty, students and members of the public.

Bartov centered his discussion on how the East Galician town of Buczacz was transformed from a site of coexistence – where Poles, Ukrainians and Jews had all lived side-by-side for centuries – into a site of genocide during World War II.

von Frijtag questioned commonly-held perceptions about relations between Dutch Jews and gentiles during the Holocaust during her tenure as USC Shoah Foundation Center for Advanced Genocide Research’s 2017-2018 Center Fellow.

Following another arduous school year, 17 teachers who participated in the 2016 edition of USC Shoah Foundation’s Master Teacher program in Hungary returned to present the testimony-based lessons they developed and piloted in their classes over the past year.

A public lecture by the 2017-2018 Research Week team Lorena Ávila (Centro Internacional de Toledo para la Paz, Colombia) Daniela Gleizer (Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, México) Emmanuel Kahan (Universidad Nacional de La Plata, Argentina) Nancy Nichols (Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, Chile) Yael Siman (Universidad Iberoamericana, México) Susana Sosenski (Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, México) Alejandra Morales Stekel (Director, Interactive Jewish Museum of Chile, Chile)

The international Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) awarded IWitness its Seal of Alignment for Proficiency after a rigorous review process, marking five years that IWitness has been approved by ISTE.

A public lecture by Diane Marie Amann (University of Georgia School of Law & PhD candidate in Law, Universiteit Leiden, the Netherlands) 2017-2018 Breslauer, Rutman and Anderson Research Fellow

The USC Shoah Foundation Center for Advanced Genocide Research and the USC Casden Institute for the Study of the Jewish Role in American Life invite proposals for their 2018 International Conference “New Perspectives on Kristallnacht: After 80 Years, the Nazi Pogrom in Global Comparison”.

A public lecture by Geraldien von Frijtag (Utrecht University, the Netherlands) 2017-2018 Center Research Fellow

The Holocaust is inarguably the most heinous crime against a group of people we have seen in modern times. Despite decades of wrestling with how such an atrocity could have occurred and the postwar generation promising never again, history keeps repeating itself. Therefore, the collection and the custody of testimonies from those who bear witness remains a necessary task for as long as inhumanities keep occurring. Genocide and crimes against humanity transcend religions, cultures, languages, geographic regions, socioeconomics, gender, age, etc., making testimony collection across all cultures not only a moral responsibility, but imperative given the mission of USC Shoah Foundation. We know for sure that under a certain set of circumstances, genocide could happen anywhere, and again.

With 21 participants and one observer, USC Shoah Foundation’s Teaching with Testimony in the 21st Century Master Teacher program in Budapest got off to its biggest start yet earlier this month.

Acclaimed writer and Holocaust historian Deborah Lipstadt will be a special guest at an evening of conversation with USC Shoah Foundation at Aspen Jewish Community Center Wednesday, August 9 at 5 p.m. The program is complimentary and open to the public. Lipstadt will open the evening with remarks about Holocaust denial and its role in global antisemitism.

The initiative will support educators by providing them with tools and training to responsibly engage their students now and into the future.