USC Shoah Foundation – The Institute for Visual History and Education was among the participating organizations at an open house for the USC-Max Kade Institute, home of the university’s German Studies and European Studies programs. The open house took place on April 12, 2013.

Guests watched testimony at a computer station connected via Wi-Fi to the Foundation’s Visual History Archive, which is available at USC and more than 40 other institutions around the world.

The Cold War began its thaw 25 years ago, then apparently melted sufficiently for us to get on with our lives without fear. Surprisingly, the slow thaw is still in progress.

The Jewish Museum in Prague recently debuted a new exhibit dedicated to the Nazi-produced films about the Terezin (Theresienstadt) concentration camp. The Visual History Archive is also a unique resource for Terezin remembrance.

A three-day seminar will be held November 22-24 in Kyiv to train Ukrainian teachers of social sciences and humanities, university tutors of law and human rights activists on the use of a new multimedia teacher’s guide titled Where do Human Rights Begin: History and Contemporary Approaches.

We continue our 10-part Echoes and Reflections series with Lesson 4: The Ghettos.

USC Shoah Foundation - The Institute for Visual History and Education is pleased to announce its Fellows for 2013/2014 academic year.

We continue our 10-part Echoes and Reflections series with Lesson 7: Rescuers and Non-Jewish Resistance.

Shortly after I saw Schindler’s List for the first time, I had an argument with my father about the value of such Hollywood blockbusters for teaching people about the Holocaust. We debated the following question: If Schindler’s List was the only source of information for people about the Holocaust would it perhaps be better if they did not see it at all? That is, is Schindler’s List better than nothing if what it shows is all you know about what happened to nearly six million Jews in Nazi-occupied Europe? My dad said (or shouted) yes, but I was unconvinced.

On February 2, we commemorated the 70th anniversary of the decisive WWII Battle of Stalingrad. That battle changed the course of the war, leading to the final victory over Nazi Germany. As many as two million lives may have been lost at Stalingrad. We invite you to watch edited and subtitled clips from testimonies of three Red Army veterans who participated in the frontline fighting. The Visual History Archive of USC Shoah Foundation contains interviews with hundreds of Allied liberators and Jewish war veterans from all fronts of WWII.

Offering a sweeping epic encompassing the years 1911–1945, this adaptation of the best-selling novel by Annejet van der Zijl tells the real-life love story of a mixed-race couple and their struggle to survive and help others in the Nazi-occupied Netherlands. Free spirit Rika, with four children, leaves her unfaithful husband and in order to survive, she rents out a spare room to the university student Waldemar, a bright young man from Surinam who is suffering deeply in racist Holland. Against all odds, Rika and Waldemar fall in love.