Peter Hayes is Professor Emeritus of History and German and Theodore Zev Weiss Holocaust Educational Foundation Professor Emeritus of Holocaust Studies at Northwestern University and a former chair of the Academic Committee of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Among his thirteen books are The Oxford Handbook of Holocaust Studies (co-edited with John K. Roth), How Was It Possible? A Holocaust Reader, and Why? Explaining the Holocaust, which also has appeared in German and Spanish translations and shortly will be in Chinese, Polish, and Slovak, as well.

I much enjoyed my stay at the USC Shoah Foundation Center for Advanced Genocide Research in early March, just before the pandemic turned all of our lives upside down. Meeting the wonderful members of the staff and seeing how much the operations of both the Foundation and the Center have grown since my last visit in 2014 were remarkable experiences.