Southern California students in the seventh grade and above are welcome to apply to the highly competitive internship program, which provides a dynamic learning opportunity for young people who will engage with testimonies from survivors and witnesses of genocide.
junior interns / Monday, October 1, 2018
Kimberly Cheng’s lecture, “American Dreams: Jewish Refugees and Chinese Locals in Post-World War II Shanghai,” examined the collision of cultures in Shanghai, which was significantly influenced first by the persecution of Chinese by Japanese invaders throughout the country, then by the influx of Jewish refugees, and after the war ended, by the arrival and presence of U.S. troops.
Shanghai, jewish refugees, Kimberly Cheng, center / Tuesday, October 2, 2018
Although the current situation in Hungary is more complex than many outsiders understand, it’s a tense situation, Ildikó Barna said, and a good time for students to pay more attention to where the slippery slope of hatred can lead – and where it has indeed taken their own country.
Ildiko Barna, hungary, xenophobia, International Teaching Fellow, Viktor Orban / Wednesday, October 3, 2018
Ignited by students’ enthusiasm over IWitness's recent “100 Days to Inspire Respect” initiative, a campaign called #180DaysToInspireRespect has students at Robert Adams Middle School in Massachusetts volunteering each day to present about the respectful acts they’ve witnessed, received, read and heard about.
Lisa Farese, classroom, iwitness, inspire respect, bulletin board / Monday, October 8, 2018
The additions will enable the people of Rwanda, who are still dealing with the aftermath of the 1994 Genocide Against the Tutsis that left as many as 1 million people murdered over the course of 100 days, to connect with people from the past who shared similar experiences.
rwanda, kigali genocide memorial, vha / Wednesday, October 10, 2018
University student government leaders who participated in the Institute's inaugural Intercollegiate Diversity Congress reflect on the impact of testimony to counter antisemitism, racism and other forms of hate.
/ Wednesday, October 10, 2018
Curious but friendly onlookers in the multicultural middle-class neighborhood in Amsterdam joined us. A café owner slowly crossed the street. “What’s happening?” she asked. “We are placing memorial stones in front of my grandparents’ home where they last lived before being deported in 1942,” I replied. “Please join us!”
Stolpersteine, stumbling stones, Amsterdam, op-eds / Wednesday, October 17, 2018
Education and Outreach Specialist Sedda Antekelian and Program Officer Manuk Avedikyan shared information about the educational use of testimony in the Institute’s Visual History Archive and on the Institute’s educational website, IWitness.
Armenian Genocide, iwitness / Thursday, October 18, 2018
The app by USC Shoah Foundation guides visitors as they move through the plaza, providing explanations about each interpretive element, as well as personal stories by survivors, maps, photos and other multimedia.
iwalk, Philadelphia, Holocaust Memorial Plaza, plaza / Monday, October 22, 2018
November 5-7, 2018 at the University of Southern California and Villa Aurora
/ Monday, October 22, 2018
"The Girl and The Picture," a film by USC Shoah Foundation that centers on a survivor of the 1937 Nanjing Massacre in China, has been nominated for a 2018 International Documentary Association Award, which is considered among the world’s most important recognitions of the documentary genre.
The Girl and The Picture, IDA, International Documentary Association / Wednesday, October 24, 2018
Called “Cake For Winter,” the sketch by Amanda Andrei stems from a little-known fact that was also unknown to her: During World War II, thousands of Americans and Europeans were interned at Japanese-run concentration camps in the Philippines. It was selected to be performed by actors at the Midwest Dramatists Conference in Kansas.
DITT, playwriting class, playwright, Philippines, internment, Gisela Golombek / Thursday, October 25, 2018
Gisela Golombek’s Jewish family had immigrated to the Philippines via Britain after fleeing Nazi Germany just before the war. On Dec. 8, 1941 – the same day as Pearl Harbor – Japan attacked Manila. The 9-year-old Golombek and her family were among the thousands of Americans and Europeans rounded up from Manila homes. They were imprisoned at the Santo Tomas Internment Camp in Manila.  
Philippines, internment camps / Thursday, October 25, 2018
Martina Kessel's research examines the meaning and role of humor as an identity practice in Germany during the time of National Socialism in Germany. In this lecture, she explores the theory that non-Jewish Germans disguised violence as 'art' to justify their failure to comply with international or humanitarian beliefs.
discussion, lecture, cagr, presentation / Friday, October 26, 2018
The Stronger Than Hate initiative will publish stories on a regular basis that will each highlight a separate learning activity in IWitness, tackling some of today’s toughest subjects for students in middle school, high school and universities.
iwitness, IWitness resource alert, stronger than hate / Friday, October 26, 2018
In this activity, students examine stories that have the power to strengthen our human connection or create deep divides leading to hate, intolerance and violence.
iwitness, IWitness Spotlight, stronger than hate / Friday, October 26, 2018
Our hearts ache and our minds reel. Innocent lives have been lost at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh where a celebration of life was taking place. Now is a time to mourn those who have been wrenched away from their families at a time that should have been filled with joy. It’s a time to grieve for their families and friends who will forever struggle to understand what happened.
Pittsburgh, Squirrel Hill, Robert Bowers, antiSemitism, mass shooting / Sunday, October 28, 2018
BY STEPHEN SMITH. Anita Lasker-Wallfisch, a survivor of the Auschwitz-Birkenau Nazi death camp in Poland, is the first person I have spoken to since the mass shooting which left eleven dead at the Tree of Life synagogue. She does not waste time greeting me in the doorway of her home in London. “So what are we going to do Stephen? We are not making progress!”
Anita Lasker-Wallfisch, Pittsburgh, antiSemitism / Monday, October 29, 2018
The history of antisemitism is strewn with the corpses of Jews who could not get out of the way when words turned to violence. The slaying of innocent Jewish lives by Pittsburgh gunman Robert Bowers, who this weekend turned his rhetoric about killing Jews into the actual killing of Jewish people, is the latest example. We need laws to allow intervention much earlier, or this will not be the last time we see Jewish people die in America because they are Jews.
Pittsburgh, Tree of Life Synagogue, hate speech, op-eds, antiSemitism / Monday, October 29, 2018
In this lecture, Kimberly Cheng aims to write Central European Jewish refugees back into the changing landscape of postwar Shanghai by examining the ways in which Jewish refugees and Chinese locals perceived and interacted with each other. In particular, she will explore the impact of the arrival of American forces on Sino-Jewish relations on the ground in the immediate postwar period.
discussion, lecture, cagr, presentation / Tuesday, October 30, 2018
In this lecture, Professor Geoffrey Robinson (UCLA) discusses his newest book, The Killing Season. The Killing Season examines one of the largest and swiftest instances of mass killing and incarceration in the twentieth century—the shocking anti-leftist purge that gripped Indonesia in 1965–66, leaving some five hundred thousand people dead and more than a million others in detention.
lecture, presentation, discussion, cagr, indonesia / Tuesday, October 30, 2018
Kimberly Cheng (PhD candidate in Hebrew & Judaic Studies and History, New York University) 2018-2019 Breslauer, Rutman & Anderson Research Fellow “American Dreams: Jewish Refugees and Chinese Locals in Post-World War II Shanghai” September 27, 2018
cagr / Wednesday, October 31, 2018
Geoffrey Robinson (University of California, Los Angeles) “The Killing Season: A History of the Indonesian Massacres, 1965-66” October 4, 2018
cagr summary / Wednesday, October 31, 2018
The USC Shoah Foundation Center for Advanced Genocide Research invites research proposals from advanced-standing Ph.D. candidates for its 2019-2020 research fellowships. Each fellowship provides $4,000 support and will be awarded to an outstanding advanced- standing Ph.D. candidate from any discipline for dissertation research focused on testimony from the USC Shoah Foundation Visual History Archive and other USC resources.
cagr / Wednesday, October 31, 2018
Our thoughts are with the families and community of those who were murdered at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh -- the most deadly antisemitic attack in U.S. history. We have curated a handful of resources to help educators engage students in meaningful dialogue.
antiSemitism, educational resources / Wednesday, October 31, 2018
USC Shoah Foundation Executive Director Stephen Smith gave the keynote address at a conference with Holocaust educators located at the site of the Warsaw Ghetto. In the U.K, he attended events celebrating the launch of the Visual History Archive at the University of Oxford. USC Shoah Foundation Director of Global Outreach Karen Jungblut was also in Poland and then attended an event in Hungary to celebrate the launch of the Visual History Archive at 40 Hungarian institutions.
Europe, polin, POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews, Oxford, hungary / Wednesday, October 31, 2018