Jenna Leventhal is the associate director of education - digital engagement and oversees IWitness. She received her master’s in public history from the University of Houston and in 2011 joined the staff of the USC Shoah Foundation to work on IWitness, while the educational website was still undergoing testing and development. Leventhal was first introduced to the USC Shoah Foundation as an undergraduate at UC Santa Barbara, working on a project for a public history course.

 

Nine teachers gathered at the International school of Brno on Monday for an IWitness hands-on seminar led by Martin Šmok, USC Shoah Foundation’s senior international program consultant based in the Czech Republic.
Students and teachers can now download their video projects constructed in IWitness using the WeVideo editor and their word clouds built in the Information Quest activities. So here are three easy steps for students and teachers to download their work from IWitness!

Detroit-area educators are in the midst of a three-day ITeach Institute to develop their knowledge and skills for teaching with IWitness. The institute, the first of its kind in Michigan, is part of USC Shoah Foundation’s IWitness Detroit program.

Frank Fukuhara, a Japanese soldier during World War II, recalls how he was allowed to return home to Hiroshima about a month after VJ Day. He didn't know about the atomic bomb until he was on the train and heard other passengers talking about it.

(For directions, click here.)

The two newest activities in IWitness were written by teachers who were inspired to help fellow educators teach their students profound lessons using testimony from the Visual History Archive.

Holocaust survivor Romana Farrington breaks down stereotypes about Catholic Poles during the Holocaust. This clip is part of the new IWitness activity What is "The Danger of a Single Story"?.

About 60 librarians and archivists from the Association of College & Research Libraries (ACRL) viewed a webinar about the Visual History Archive on Thursday, August 18, hosted by ProQuest and USC Shoah Foundation.

Frances Zatz describes the Polish Home Army's uprising in Warsaw, Poland in August 1944, which was spurred by the belief that Soviet forces across the Vistula River would liberate them. The Soviet army did not intervene, leaving the Warsaw inhabitants to defend themselves against heavy German fire. Among Warsaw Rising fighters were Polish Jews who survived Warsaw Ghetto Uprising that took place a year earlier. Some of them were prisoners of Gesiowka Concentration Camp liberated by Polish Home Army at the very beginning of the Risin, on August 4th, 1944.