USC Shoah Foundation Institute Executive Director Stephen D. Smith, Managing Director Kim Simon, and Director of Programs Kori Street were in Belgium this week for the year's first plenary gathering of the Task Force for International Cooperation on Holocaust Education, Remembrance, and Research (ITF).
The USC Shoah Foundation Institute is partnering to present the international symposium "Bridging the Divide in Holocaust and Genocide Studies: Towards a Cross-Cultural Interdisciplinary Dialogue" to take place June 12 - 14 at Haifa University in Israel. Moving beyond ethically loaded debates surrounding definitions of Holocaust and genocide and the limits of comparison, the symposium will explore the way Holocaust-based discourse, tropes, and commemorative practice inform and/or are incongruent with diverse experiences of global mass violence in everyday life.
The National Education Association (NEA) has added a selection of the Institute's classroom lessons to its Lesson Plan Search Engine. The lessons, which are available online, center on experiences of Holocaust survivors and other witnesses.
Now searchable on the NEA Lesson Plan Search Engine
Twenty Holocaust survivor interviews recorded in the Hungarian language, including 13 from the USC Shoah Foundation Institute's Visual History Archive, will be displayed in a new, interactive installation at the Holocaust Memorial Center in Budapest.
Scheduled to open on August 28, "Wall of Survivors" uses motion sensor cameras to track visitor's hand movements, allowing them to enlarge and play particular interviews displayed on the wall. All visitors present can view the clips selected by the person using the control space.
When the Institute sent teams around the world to gather video testimony from survivors and eyewitnesses of the Holocaust, more than 2,500 Australians came forward. Nearly 20 years later, the Institute is once again in Australia; this time, the focus is on students.
In partnership with Education Services Australia Limited (ESA), the Institute is exploring the possibility of integrating its award-winning website IWitness (currently in beta) into the Australian national curriculum. About IWitness
Glenn Fox, a fifth-year Ph.D. candidate in neuroscience at the University of Southern California, visited the USC Shoah Foundation Institute on May 17 to discuss how he used testimony from the Visual History Archive for his research on gratitude.
USC Shoah Foundation – The Institute for Visual History and Education and the Anti-Defamation League held a workshop in November where nearly 50 Southern California teachers learned to use Echoes and Reflections, a multimedia curriculum on the Holocaust.