In this lecture, Bieke Van Camp presented some of the findings of her ongoing doctoral research on social interaction and group survival strategies in the Nazi concentration and extermination camps. She explored how network analysis of Italian testimonies from the oral collections of the Visual History Archive and the Centro Documentazione Ebraica Contemporanea of Milan suggests that a very large majority of Italian Jews were deported initially to the same Nazi Lager (Birkenau) during a rather small lapse of time (October 1943 – 1945).

More about Sara Góralnik Shapiro Sara Góralnik Shapiro remembers the day her mother sent her and her brother out of the Korzec ghetto in the hopes they would survive with a Ukrainian farmer. Watch Sara Góralnik Shapiro's full testimony in the Visual History Archive Online.

I was laying in bed one day scrolling through Instagram, lost in the endless stories that have me so addicted to my phone. I skipped some and lingered on others, navigating the echo chamber of social media like a pro before coming across my local bookstore’s account. They were sharing books to read while their doors were temporarily closed due to Coronavirus. A vibrant yellow and blue cover with the words, A Nail The Evening Hangs On, caught my eye; it was a book of poetry — a rare purchase for me, but the nod to the poet’s Cambodian history pulled me right in.

In this talk, Ayşenur Korkmaz explored how the survivors and their descendants reflect on their ‘place of origin’ and ex-social networks in the former Ottoman Empire. What did or does ‘home’ and ‘homeland’ mean to them when it no longer exists in the way that they imagine(d)? How do we make sense of their site of memories and imaginations of the material and relational ‘home,’ and everyday life before the genocide?

My grandmother, Hana, taught me to be alone, to be able to sit in my space and observe all around. She taught me to describe what I see — the stacks of history books, cards sent from friends, photos of my family, vinyls stacked high, and the flowers from my last trip to the grocery store. She taught me to take an interest in the simple parts of life and to find symbolism and comfort in the mundane.

This past May, a friend sent me an article he knew I would appreciate. It was an opinion piece in the New York Times titled “Burying My Bubby During the Pandemic” written by a comedy writer named Eitan Levine who, like me, grew up with a grandmother who survived the Holocaust. I began to read and found myself immediately wrapped inside his writing which was so honest it was cathartic. I immediately reached out to Eitan and asked if his grandmother’s testimony was in USC Shoah Foundation’s Visual History Archive.

The USC Shoah Foundation Center for Advanced Genocide Research invites research proposals from USC undergraduate students and USC graduate students for the 2020 Beth and Arthur Lev Student Research Fellowship.

In recent years, there has been a significant spike in antisemitism and hate-fueled violence and rhetoric against different groups on both a national and global scale. Surveys show that Holocaust education has an enormous positive impact on young people’s attitudes, beliefs, behaviors, and actions. Despite the decisive outcomes from an understanding of this important history, Holocaust education is a requirement in only 15 U.S. states. The need for Holocaust education could not be greater now. Join this panel of experts to learn about the ongoing efforts to increase Holocaust education across the country.

In this talk, Chad Gibbs will discuss how Jewish prisoners created what he terms “spaces of resistance” at Treblinka and how studying these locations can provide revelations about the roles of women prisoners in resistance.

June 19, also known as Juneteenth, commemorates the day in 1865 when slavery ended in America - more than two years after the Emancipation Proclamation was issued by President Lincoln. It is a day of commemoration and celebration of African American history and heritage, but also a day of reflection.

1:00 PDT | 4:00 EDT | 6:00 AM AEST 9 July 1 Hour This webinar is developed for an educator, university, and community member audience. It is not intended for K-12 students.

On October 21, 2020, at 9:00 AM EDT, join Echoes & Reflections Director Ariel Behrman as she discusses how her team responded to the needs and concerns of teachers faced with suddenly having to teach the history of the Holocaust in a virtual classroom as schools closed in the wake of COVID-19, by developing and extending their pedagogy, teaching strategies and tools to support teaching about the Holocaust in the context of COVID-19.

1:00 PDT | 4:00 EDT | 6:00 AM AEST 28 July 1 Hour 15 minutes This webinar is developed for an educator, university, and community member audience. It is not intended for K-12 students.

This webinar is developed for an educator, university, and community member audience. It is not intended for K-12 students.

Featuring testimony clips and a conversation with special guests highlighting the interviewer experience moderated by Stephen D. Smith, PhD

On November 24 at 8AM PST/11AM EST, USC Shoah Foundation Finci-Viterbi Executive Director Stephen Smith will moderate a panel of experts convened by UNESCO to launch UNESCO and OSCE's latest publication on antisemitism. Addressing Anti-Semitism in Schools: Training Curricula, a new four volume resource for teacher and school director trainers is UNESCO's second publication dedicated to antisemitism since 2018. The resource and event are designed to engage in meaningful discussions about effective ways to address antisemitism through education.

As we wrap up a very challenging year for many across the globe, we want to share highlights of just some of the work our Institute team and our partners have accomplished during the ongoing pandemic. Thank you for your support.

Classrooms Without Borders, in partnership with Liberation75, Rodef Shalom Congregation, and Film Pittsburgh, is excited to offer the opportunity to watch the film "Prosecuting Evil: The Extraordinary World of Ben Ferencz" and engage in a post-film discussion with the film director, Barry Avrich; former U.S. Ambassador-at-Large for War Crimes Issues, David Scheffer; Executive Director of the USC Shoah Foundation, Dr. Stephen Smith; former Senior Historian at Facing History and Ourselves, Dr.

Museum Visitors engage with Interactive Biography of Acclaimed Cellist and German-Born Holocaust Survivor Anita Lasker Wallfisch.

USC Shoah Foundation—working with on-site partners National Historical Museums in Sweden and the Institution for Jewish Culture in Sweden—recently began filming two Swedish-language Dimensions in Testimony interviews in Stockholm, Sweden utilizing innovative social distancing and filming techniques.

I had the opportunity to research the USC Shoah Foundation's Visual History Archive this past summer thanks to the Beth and Arthur Lev Student Research Fellowship. I was initially introduced to the archive through a course taught by Dr. Maria Zalewska in the School of Cinematic Arts entitled “Meme, Myself and I: How We Remember in the Digital Age.” Prior to the course, I was unaware of this resource at USC despite having a visual art practice deeply engaged with Holocaust remembrance and archives.

With a focus on our first-ever podcast, We Share The Same Sky, join us for a conversation of the digital impacts of testimony, featuring We Share the Same Sky producer Rachael Cerrotti.

We join a worldwide community to celebrate the recent 100th birthday of Ludmila Page, a Holocaust survivor who helped bring the story of Oskar Schindler to light together with her late husband Paul (Poldek Pfefferberg). The two of them and more than 1,200 other Jews survived the Holocaust thanks to Schindler.

Sam Gustman has been chief technology officer (CTO) of the Shoah Foundation since 1994. Gustman is also associate dean and CTO at the USC Libraries where he oversees IT for the Libraries and started the USC Digital Repository.

Wilma Bulkin Siegel was seven years old in 1945 when her father took her to the movies to watch newsreels of the liberation of Nazi concentration camps. “Why couldn’t I have done something about it?” she whispered to her father. Decades later, Siegel, a retired New York City oncologist and a pioneer in hospice care, has discovered a new tool for making an impact: a paintbrush.

Sam Gustman, USC Shoah Foundation Chief Technology Officer, reflects on his long friendship with Arnold Spielberg, who passed away August 25 at the age of 103.

Panama’s Jewish community is commemorating Yom HaShoah virtually this year with a week-long series of thematic Instagram posts that will integrate clips from USC Shoah Foundation’s Visual History Archive. In memory of the six million killed, Panama Friends of Yad Vashem coordinated a six-day campaign focused on survivor families in Panama, the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, and community commemorations of Yom HaShoah.

Visit Echoes & Reflections for comprehensive programming and resources about the Holocaust especially designed for educators so they can gain the skills, knowledge, and confidence to teach this topic effectively. On January 27, 2020, the bipartisan bill passed in the House with nearly unanimous support. Today, it passed the senate with complete support and is now on its way for the president's signature.

“Walking a Fine Line: Hungarian-Jewish Survivors and the Discourse Surrounding Sexual Violence in Postwar Testimonies” Allison Somogyi USC-Yale Postdoctoral Research Fellow August 27, 2020

In recognition of their service as witnesses to the Holocaust, German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier honored survivors Anita Lasker-Wallfisch and Henrietta Kretz with the highest civilian honor, the Order of Merit. Due to the pandemic, the president was unable to confer the medals personally but sent handwritten notes acknowledging their dedication to keeping the memory of the Holocaust alive and providing a strong voice against current antisemitism, right extremism and racism.