A group of Bioethics and the Holocaust Fellows recently gathered at USC Shoah Foundation headquarters in Los Angeles to develop content for new curriculums that will feature Visual History Archive testimony from survivors of Nazi medical experiments. The Holocaust marked a profound and sadistic deviation from traditional notions of medical ethics, with medical and scientific communities in the Third Reich actively participating in the labeling, persecution and eventual mass murder of millions deemed “unfit.”

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.

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.

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. 

A public lecture by Ryan Cheuk Him Sun (PhD candidate in History, University of British Columbia, Canada) 2022-2023 Breslauer, Rutman, and Anderson Research Fellow (Join us in person for this lecture or attend virtually on Zoom) Organized by the USC Dornsife Center for Advanced Genocide Research  

A public lecture by Ryan Cheuk Him Sun (PhD candidate in History, University of British Columbia, Canada) 2022-2023 Breslauer, Rutman, and Anderson Research Fellow (Join us in person for this lecture or attend virtually on Zoom) Organized by the USC Dornsife Center for Advanced Genocide Research