Thanks to an extraordinary gift from the Koret Foundation, USC Shoah Foundation is partnering with the Hold On to Your Music Foundation to develop an educational program centered around The Children of Willesden Lane, a novel and musical that highlight the story of Jewish children rescued from central Europe and sent unaccompanied to Great Britain by the Kindertransport at the start of World War II.

Alive through oil and acrylic, the eleven survivors of Auschwitz look forward resolutely, facing the world together, bound by their shared history. The survivors are subjects depicted in an 18-foot wide portrait that served as the centerpiece of artist David Kassan’s recent exhibition Facing Survival: David Kassan at USC Fisher Museum of Art.

Twenty-five years ago, the world watched as the small African country of Rwanda descended into genocidal violence. Over the course of just a few months, forces in the government, media, military and general population attacked members of the country’s Tutsi minority, killing more than 800,000 of them in an organized campaign of genocide. In the years since, as the country has rebuilt and invested in a process of investigation, justice and reconciliation, the voices of survivors have become central.

In 1964, America’s first Holocaust memorial was unveiled in central Philadelphia at the head of Benjamin Franklin Parkway. More than 50 years later, the location surrounding this historically significant monument houses an interactive plaza, the Philadelphia Holocaust Memorial Plaza, a living monument to the 6 million lives lost in the Holocaust. The new plaza opened in October 2018 with onsite installations to inspire visitors to remember and reflect.

Born in Hungary, Weiss-Fischmann supports USC Shoah Foundation’s International Teacher Training program to help reverse the rising antisemitism and intolerance there. She wants no one else to ever have to suffer the way her mother did — or to endure the even worse fates of those family members she never knew.

The grandchild of a Holocaust survivor, Aliza Liberman wonders whether her children will feel as connected to its horrors and lessons as she does. As a member of USC Shoah Foundation’s Next Generation Council, Liberman is doing what she can to ensure future generations feel that bond by supporting the Institute’s mission.

Rautenberg's longtime accountant, Tom Corby, now the president of the foundation that bears the Rautenberg name, remembers Erwin as a hard-working, deeply principled man. “He established the Erwin Rautenberg Foundation to strengthen Jewish causes,” Corby says. “He wanted to make sure that the Jewish people and religion endured.”

The San Francisco-based Koret Foundation shares USC Shoah Foundation’s goals of using history to build connections between communities and cultures. “An important pillar of the Koret Foundation is to create a vibrant and connected Jewish community,” Koret Foundation Chief Executive Officer Jeffrey Farber says.

Melanie Dadourian is an active member of the Next Generation Council because she understands all too well the dangers of silence and denial. Her grandparents were Armenian Genocide survivors who escaped certain death in Turkey by fleeing to the United States and that history deeply affects her.

Tianfu Bank and Tianfu Group support the collection of Nanjing Massacre survivors’ testimonies for USC Shoah Foundation’s Visual History Archive and New Dimensions in Testimony project. They want to ensure that the world will learn from — and never forget — the Nanjing Massacre, which resulted in the mass rape and killing that began on December 13, 1937, and lasted for several weeks, ending nearly 300,000 lives.

“Stories have the power to educate, change people’s world view, and inspire empathy,” says David Zaslav, a member of USC Shoah Foundation’s Executive Committee and the president and CEO of Discovery Communications. “It’s a kind of understanding that can’t be replicated by history books.”

Samuel H. Pond, managing partner of Pond Lehocky Stern Giordano and a longtime supporter of USC Shoah Foundation, decided to dedicate even more time and energy to the cause by joining the Institute's Next Generation Council after a moving conversation with Board of Councilors Chair Stephen Cozen.

As a clinical psychologist and psychoanalyst, Sarah Sternklar, PhD, recognizes the powerful healing effects of words - how important and therapeutic it can be for people to tell their story. "This is a wonderful benefit for the survivors."

An Auschwitz survivor who lost her parents, little brother, and grandparents during the Holocaust, she does not know her birthday, but says, “every day I wake up is my birthday.” After the camps were liberated, Mantelmacher came to the United States in the 1950s to begin her new life. She found work and started a family. Her two daughters became teachers, and she found her own life’s work as an educator.

For Board of Councilors Chair Emeritus Robert J. Katz, involvement with USC Shoah Foundation stems not from a direct personal connection, but from an emotional pull he’d later identify.