This webinar examines the stories of Black G.I.s featured in Echoes & Reflections who liberated concentration camps, including Leon Bass and Paul Parks. It will also focus on the experience of facing the reality of Nazi genocide, while balancing the impact of discrimination and violence at home in the United States.

Gerald Szames is 2, maybe 3 years old. He is standing at the foot of the bed, looking at his mother. She is sick, propped up on a pile of pillows. He has other flashes of memories of life before the Nazis invaded his Polish shtetl of Trochenbrod in 1941, when he was four years old – his grandfather taking him to the mill, his father lifting him up to give him a candy and a kiss.

Suzette Sheft first recognized the importance of recording family history when it was already too late. As a young child, the New York City student had regularly listened to her father’s stories, but when he died of pancreatic cancer when she was just 13, she realized she was unable to remember many of them. “When he was alive, he would tell me stories about his life while tucking me in each night, but in the months following his death, I found myself forgetting many of his recollections,” Suzette said.

In writing the story of Polish Catholic diplomat Jan Karski, who in 1943 brought eye-witness evidence of Nazi atrocities directly to Western leaders, creators of the play and film "Remember This" had many sources to draw on. But it was Karski’s 1995 interview with the USC Shoah Foundation that was most useful in navigating the intricacies of Karski’s character, providing emotional resonance to the film.

We are grateful that so many of these survivors, partners, friends, and family members have entrusted us to share their stories for future generations, and for the passion and dedication they brought in support of our mission.

USC Shoah Foundation today unveils a Dimensions in Testimony (DiT) interview with internationally celebrated author and concert pianist Mona Golabek. Published on the Institute’s award-winning IWitness page in honor of International Holocaust Remembrance Day, this is the inaugural DiT interactive experience to feature a second-generation (or ‘2G”) descendent of a Holocaust survivor.

In this keynote from March 28, 2023, in recognition of the Mickey Shapiro Endowed Chair in Holocaust Education Research at the University of Southern California, distinguished scholar Mary Helen Immordino-Yang suggests that the foundation of the future of education is rooted in story – stories that help us care.

USC Shoah Foundation partner and celebrated author, performer and concert pianist Mona Golabek this week brings her virtual, theatrical performance based on The Children of Willesden Lane book to 50,000 students and educators in Texas. Premiering as part of Texas Holocaust Remembrance Week, the Willesden READS performance promises to be the largest Holocaust education event ever to be held in the state. The virtual program and accompanying live events this week in Texas was made possible with the generous support of the Morton H. Meyerson Family Foundation.

USC Shoah Foundation mourns the December 7, 2022 passing of Tom Tugend, a Berlin-born veteran of three wars and an award-winning journalist who fled the Nazi regime just months ahead of the outbreak of World War II. He was 97. 

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.

A public lecture organized by Holocaust Museum LA Join author Wolf Gruner as he discusses his new book, a highly original and compelling account of individual Jews who resisted Nazi persecution, challenging the traditional portrayal of Jewish passivity during the Holocaust.   RSVP here

In 2018, USC Shoah Foundation launched an initiative to address requests from survivors who, for complex and often very personal reasons, could not come forward in the 1990s. Since the start of COVID, the foundation has received more than 400 requests from survivors to record their testimonies. We believe there are thousands more who want to tell their stories. 

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.

In 2018, USC Shoah Foundation launched the Last Chance Testimony Initiative to address requests from survivors who, for complex and often very personal reasons, could not come forward in the 1990s. Since the start of COVID, the foundation has received more than 400 requests from survivors to record their testimonies. We believe there are thousands more who want to tell their stories. The global pandemic has accelerated our race against time. The last chance is upon us.

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.

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 in partnership with Aspen Film cordially invite you to a special screening of Remember This starring Academy Award-nominee David Strathairn

Equipped with blankets and snacks and dressed in pajamas, 24 young women of USC’s Gamma Phi Beta settled into the living room of their sorority house last fall to watch a video of Edith Eger telling her story of survival and resilience during the Holocaust. Edith’s story struck a chord with many sisters, as she recounted how her friendships with other women saved her life in Auschwitz. In the discussion that followed, the women focused on themes of sisterhood, solidarity and cooperation.

This December marks the 30th anniversary of the release of Schindler’s List, Steven Spielberg’s Academy Award™-winning film that brought Holocaust remembrance to the forefront of popular culture. To commemorate the anniversary, the USC Shoah Foundation and the Museum of Jewish Heritage in New York City are hosting a special panel discussion on November 5 to examine the impact and legacy of the film and its influence on the evolution of Holocaust history and memory.

Join USC Shoah Foundation for this unique webinar that will introduce Edith Maniker, a survivor of the Kindertransport, and Mona Golabek, the daughter of Lisa Jura who was saved by the Kindertransport, for a live conversation as well as an introduction to their digital biographies shared in the Foundation's Dimensions in Testimony program.

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.

Gerald Szames chokes up easily, especially when talking about his mother. So for years, his daughter has taken it upon herself to tell her father’s story of surviving the Holocaust as a small boy. She speaks to audiences at schools, houses of worship and community centers, often with her father by her side to answer questions. 

In the aftermath of the October 7 Hamas terrorist attacks in southern Israel, the USC Shoah Foundation and Tablet Studios announced a partnership to collect, archive, and make available testimonies of survivors, bereaved family members, and rescuers who risked their lives to save others during the assault.

April 7 is the International Day of Reflection on the 1994 Genocide Against the Tutsi in Rwanda. The day of remembrance marks the start of the 100-day genocidal campaign in which an estimated 800,000 Rwandans—mainly Tutsis and moderate Hutus—were killed by well-organized mobs of Hutu extremists. Edith Umugiraneza, a survivor of the 1994 Genocide Against the Tutsi in Rwanda who now works for USC Shoah Foundation, says false information and manipulated facts helped ignite and sustain the violence, and even today threaten to distort our understanding of events.

In this blog, the Center's 2022-2023 Greenberg Research Fellow Raíssa Alonso reflects on resistance and the roots of her research. 

Sedda Antekelian, a member of USC Shoah Foundation’s education team, never knew her own great grandmother had recorded testimony about surviving the Armenian Genocide. Hearing her great grandmother’s voice for the first time has brought Sedda closer to family, filled in gaps about her own history, and opened even more questions.

Wonder Woman star Gal Gadot opened her Los Angeles home to friends and family earlier this week to commemorate Yom HaShoah by hosting an intimate conversation with Holocaust survivor Celina Biniaz, the youngest female on Oskar Schindler’s famed list.

A powerful testament to the courage of the Righteous Among the Nations who risked their lives to save Jews during the Holocaust. Moving archival testimony - provided by the USC Shoah Foundation and March of the Living - focuses on four Polish rescuers whose stories have been shared with March of the Living students. Director & Producer: Naomi Wise Executive Producer: Dr. David Machlis Special Thanks: Elkie Rosen Foundation