When the Coronavirus pandemic banished students and teachers from classrooms in March 2020, Liza Manoyan scrambled to shift to distance learning. Figuring out the technology was one thing. But she faced another challenge. “There are not a lot of digital resources for teaching in Armenian,” she said.

International March of the Living and Rutgers University Miller Center for Community Protection and Resilience will host “Let There be Light,” an internationally broadcast event commemorating Kristallnacht. The event, featuring testimony from USC Shoah Foundation's Visual History Archive, honors the moral heroism and valor of those who resisted evil during the Holocaust and at other times of mortal peril to humanity.

It was really just a coincidence that in her efforts to reduce racism, hatred, and violence, some of Ceci Chan’s earliest work with USC Shoah Foundation involved the Nanjing Massacre. Chan, a strategic investor and philanthropist, had been funding projects around Holocaust education for 13 years when she met USC Shoah Foundation Finci-Viterbi Executive Director Stephen Smith at a Shabbat dinner while both were attending the USC Global Conference in Hong Kong in the fall of 2011.

USC Shoah Foundation’s newly established Scholar Lab program provides academics with an opportunity to engage in cross-disciplinary scholarly inquiry in a collaborative space. The inaugural 2020-2021 Scholar Lab program focuses on the topic of antisemitism. A cohort of academics was invited to explore antisemitism from a wide range of disciplinary perspectives and to use the collaborative meetings to guide and hone their work. The results of their research, presented in both traditional and non-traditional formats, will be accessible to the public later this year.

As the Covid 19 pandemic requires educators to provide their students with new and unprecedented levels of social emotional support, The Willesden Project, a partnership of USC Shoah Foundation and Hold On To Your Music, is inviting teachers to a special webinar to learn strategies and engage with experts for using music and testimony as sources of healing in the classroom.

Join USC Shoah Foundation’s Dr.

On November 7th 1996, Nancy Fisher, a bundle of nerves, knocked on the door of Erika Gold’s home in Leonia, New Jersey. She was there on behalf of the Shoah Foundation to interview Erika, a Holocaust survivor. Nancy was terrified to conduct the interview. Knowing only the Nancy Fisher of today, I am shocked to hear this. Nancy exudes a calm wisdom, care, and confidence that only 25 years of Holocaust survivor interviewing could foster.

  Call for Applications from PhD Candidates   Greenberg Research Fellowship Katz Research Fellowship in Genocide Studies

Join Ashley K. Fernandes, MD, PhD, Associate Professor of Clinical Pediatrics and Associate Director of the Center for Bioethics at The Ohio State University College of Medicine for a webinar commemorating the 75th anniversary of the beginning of the Doctors Trial at Nuremberg, where physicians were placed on trial for their active participation in the labeling, persecution, and eventual mass murder of those deemed “lives unworthy of living.”

USC Shoah Foundation and Discovery Education have announced the winners of the United Kingdom category of the 2021 international Stronger Than Hate Challenge First prize in the challenge was awarded to Elizabeth Stickland, a Year 8 (US 7th grade) student from Attleborough Academy who wrote a powerful poem about how communities can overcome prejudice. Elizabeth’s top prize is a £5,000 ($6,700) grant for her school and an iPad.

Elisabeth Citrom bears a sense of responsibility in telling her survival testimony: “I have a duty to share my story for the next generations to hear, in the hope they will get something from it.” Born in Romania, she survived the children’s barracks at Auschwitz-Birkenau and was taken on a death march to Lenzing, where she was eventually liberated by Americans in 1945. She then lived in Israel where she served as an officer in the Israel Defense Forces before settling in Sweden to raise a family.

Like many Holocaust survivors, Joe Adamson had been reluctant to speak of his experiences, which included a series of relocations brought about by the rise of Nazism: from his birthplace in Koenigsberg, Germany to Frankfurt Oder to live with his grandparents—whose house was ransacked on Kristallnacht—and then to England on the Kindertransport when he was 14, arriving at Weston-at-the-Sea with a small suitcase and no knowledge of English. Later, he worked as a translator for the U.S. Army on a team that interrogated Nazis and was at the front with troops who liberated Mauthausen.

Holocaust Survivor Ed Mosberg has not slowed down. At 95, he’s dedicated much of his life to the tireless work of sharing his story and preserving the memory of those lost, which includes more than 60 of his family members. “I lost my whole family,” Mosberg said, “and I have to ensure that their story will never be forgotten.”

Board of Councilors Life Member Jerry Coben can pinpoint a moment that highlighted the importance of his involvement with USC Shoah Foundation. During a discussion with his son David about family history, David mentioned how much more meaningful he found the personal writings of Jerry’s mother compared to a detailed family history written by a cousin David had never met. The difference, according to Jerry, was that David could “hear” his grandmother’s voice in her writing, having known her well, something that wasn’t the case with his cousin’s narrative.

Partnerships are crucial in saving the accounts of Holocaust survivors and sharing them widely. Via USC Shoah Foundation’s Preserving the Legacy Initiative, Gabriella Karp, a Holocaust survivor, along with her sons Gary and David Karp, forged a three-way collaboration in which USC Shoah Foundation digitized and preserved more than 1,000 testimonies recorded through the Holocaust Memorial Center (HMC) near Detroit and the University of Michigan-Dearborn Voice/Vision Holocaust Survivor Oral History Archive.

Though he did not know about USC Shoah Foundation until attending an Ambassadors for Humanity Gala years ago, current Next Generation Council (NGC) Co- Chair Thom Melcher was drawn to the Institute’s work upon learning of its mission at the time—to end hatred, bigotry and intolerance. Calling the Institute’s approach to education through testimony “the best way to create lasting change,” Melcher relished the chance to be active in the fight against hatred.

Holocaust education remains vital—as a means of understanding the horrors of the past, and for addressing contemporary antisemitism and combating the forces that lead to genocide. Echoes & Reflections stands as one of the premiere sources for Holocaust education and professional development in the United States. Formed by a partnership among USC Shoah Foundation, Anti-Defamation League and Yad Vashem, Echoes & Reflections has reached more than 85,000 educators since its founding in 2005.

Next Generation Council member Aliza Liberman’s philosophy for philanthropy is simple: “If you feel connected to a cause, you should get involved.” Liberman’s connection to USC Shoah Foundation comes from her upbringing in Panama, where her paternal grandfather immigrated from Poland to escape the Holocaust, in which his entire family was later murdered.

Ruth: A Little Girl’s Big Journey is a short, animated film produced by USC Shoah Foundation. The film follows Dr. Ruth Westheimer’s early life, with Dr. Ruth’s own voice recounting how she survived the Holocaust as a young girl. According to Executive Producer Jodi Harris, the film gives viewers “a chance to discover much more about Dr. Ruth’s childhood and learn how she emerged from tragedy stronger than before.” 

In her philanthropic pursuits, Andrea Cayton has made a point of focusing on education, supporting institutions such as the Cayton’s Children Museum and Holocaust Museum LA. By focusing in part on “education about humanity,” according to Cayton, she and her family hope to help children “learn about the past and be more tolerant.” When it comes to issues like prejudice and hatred, Cayton believes it’s “harder to change older minds. But if you start young, you are more likely do so.”

Growing up, Nancy Shanfeld was disturbed by the stories her mother and aunt told of facing antisemitism as some of the only Jewish children in their south Saint Louis neighborhood during the 1930’s. “Imagining these incidents still breaks my heart,” Shanfeld said of the harassment and threats her mother Mignon Senturia and aunt Ruth faced from children and adults alike. Though Shanfeld did not experience much direct antisemitism as a young person herself, hearing of the hatred and prejudice faced by her mother and aunt moved her greatly: “It was two little girls against the world.”

Glenn L. Felner was just 18 years old when he joined the Army during WWII. “There was an undercurrent that I recall that Jews don’t fight, that Jews are cowards. So, I had to make a statement…I wanted to prove that Jews do fight…and to get as close to the action as I possibly could,” said Felner of his enlistment, which led to a wartime experience that would see him awarded with the Combat Infantry Badge, the U.S. Bronze Star and the French Legion of Honor decoration.

After being introduced to USC Shoah Foundation 15 years ago, Tamar Elkeles and Larry Michaels became invested in continuing the work of preserving Holocaust survivor testimonies. Many of their own relatives were killed in the Holocaust, and they keenly felt the responsibility to carry the torch for future generations.

A cohort of forty-one new students and five returning Junior Intern Emissaries convened virtually on November 14 for the first session of the 2021-2022 William P. Lauder Junior Internship Program. The highly selective program provides a dynamic and unique learning opportunity for students in 7th–11th grades to engage with testimonies–personal stories–from survivors and witnesses of genocide to develop their own voice, learn to recognize the patterns and impact of hate, and gain work experience and academic and digital skills.

In 2018, under the initiative of the Yale Library’s Fortunoff Video Archive, three leading institutions holding large collections of Holocaust testimonies agreed to make a portion of their materials available as transcripts, along with a subset of video recordings, in Let Them Speak / In Search of the Drowned: Testimonies and Testimonial Fragments of the Holocaust (LTS). LTS is a searchable digital anthology of testimonies which examines survivor experiences and uses them to understand the experiences of those who did not survive. It is also a dynamic monograph with essays by Dr.

Join the Montreal Holocaust Museum, USC Shoah Foundation, and Paragraphe Bookstore for a special event with author Rachael Cerrotti about her latest book “We Share the Same Sky” based on her award-winning podcast.

Longtime USC Shoah Foundation Executive Committee and Board of Councilors member Mickey Shapiro has provided a major endowed gift to create an inaugural academic chair at the Institute that will be dedicated to deepening the study of the impact of Holocaust education.

The online discussion will bring together experts to consider the issue of medical ethics during, and in response to, the Holocaust. Panelists will discuss educational initiatives that draw on the history of the Holocaust to develop ethical leadership in a contemporary context.

On the night of Sidney Bratt’s interview his family was celebrating Hanukkah. He recites the Hanukkah candles blessings from the Jewish prayer book (Siddur) which once belonged to his mother, and is surrounded by his wife and grandchildren while doing so.