In this presentation, Elyse Semerdjian will outline the earliest Armenian pilgrimages to the killing fields of Dayr al-Zur in the Syrian Desert. It is there that Armenians interacted with the remains of Armenians murdered during the Armenian Genocide (1915-1918) in acts of remembrance. Semerdjian will discuss the origins of the now-destroyed Armenian Genocide Memorial in Dayr al-Zur and the ritual and collection habits of pilgrims that enact what she calls bone memory.

Holocaust survivor Samuel Geller recalls a more sober celebration than usual on Purim of 1933 in Chemnitz, Germany, with a classmate dressing up as Hitler to play Haman, Purim’s villain.

Join us on campus or on Zoom for this special public convening featuring a keynote by distinguished scholar Mary Helen Immordino-Yang, in recognition of the Mickey Shapiro Endowed Chair in Holocaust Education Research at the University of Southern California. The event will be moderated by Dr. Ishwar K. Puri.

Modern methods of analyzing thousands of Holocaust survivor testimonies contained in collections such as the Visual History Archive present a challenge that is at once ethical and technological: how to listen to thousands of testimonies of Holocaust survivors as an integral body of voices and stories rather than a collection of fragmentary items in a database. In this talk, Hebrew University Researchers Renana Keydar and Eitan Wagner will examine the meeting point between testimony and computation, the new possibilities inherent in such an encounter, and the challenges and risks involved.

    -   Call for Papers INoGS 9th International Conference Genocide and Survivor Communities: Agency, Resistance, Recognition June 23-26, 2024 University of Southern California Los Angeles On the ancestral and unceded territory of the Tongva and Kizh Nation peoples

In partnership with USC School of Cinematic Arts, we invite you to a screening and special panel discussion of the award-winning feature film My Name Is Sara.

A public lecture by Dorota Glowacka (Professor of Humanities, University of King's College, Halifax, Canada) Center Visiting Scholar, April 2023 (Join us in person for this lecture or attend virtually on Zoom) Organized by the USC Dornsife Center for Advanced Genocide Research

The USC Dornsife Center for Advanced Genocide Research mourns the death of Kim Simon who for the last decade served as Managing Director of the USC Shoah Foundation. She passed away on February 28, 2023.

Jola Gelb is a Jewish Holocaust survivor who was imprisoned in the Metajna Concentration camp in Slana/Pag in today’s Croatia. More than 3,500 Jews, Roma and Serbs were held at Slana in the summer of 1941, and 1,000 were killed at a complex of camps run by the Ustasha regime. Researchers are using Jola’s testimony to help document and preserve the sites of persecution in Slana.

Watch and learn more about the relaunch of the Visual History Archive.

They have gathered on living room sofas, on university lawns, in synagogue sanctuaries, in public squares, and even in embassy conference rooms for intimate conversations that have a resounding global impact. Since 2011, more than 2 million people have met with Holocaust survivors to learn about their experiences and to help carry their histories and their hopes into the future.

USC Shoah Foundation and USC Rossier School of Education and its Centers EDGE and CANDLES yesterday held a special public convening to recognize the Mickey Shapiro Endowed Chair in Holocaust Education Research. At a time of surging antisemitism in the United States and around the world, the new research chair will ensure the continuation of groundbreaking academic research into how testimony-based education can deepen and expand the study of Holocaust education worldwide.

The USC Dornsife Center for Advanced Genocide Research mourns the death of Holocaust survivor Zenon Neumark, who was a close friend of the Center and passed away on March 27, 2023 at the age of 98 years old.