Testimony has always posed challenges for educators: for example, whether to treat it as historical source or personal memory; how testimony transform over time; the trauma-literacy of recipients and the well-being of testimony-givers. Nevertheless, digital technologies introduce further complications, especially concerning access, provenance, ownership, and agency.

Eighty-one years ago today Nazi soldiers and their collaborators committed one of the largest single massacres of the Holocaust with the murder of close to 33,000 Jews in the Babyn Yar ravine in Ukraine.

The site of the atrocity on the outskirts of the capital Kyiv is now a memorial that people anywhere can visit with a new Virtual IWalk released by USC Shoah Foundation earlier this year. 

USC Shoah Foundation is accepting applications for the highly competitive William P. Lauder Junior Internship Program that begins November 13.

Since 2014, the program has provided a dynamic and unique learning opportunity for hundreds of students to engage with testimonies from survivors and witnesses of genocide. 

The program is looking for 40 grade 7-11 students nationwide who are representative of diverse backgrounds and academic skills. 

Pardy Minassian’s childhood in Syria was suffused with sounds from Armenia, the result of her father’s collection of more than 500 audio and video interviews he conducted over the years with Armenian Genocide survivors.

When Pardy and her family left Syria for Armenia in 2012, the then 18-year-old student focused on a range of different Armenian sounds, earning a bachelor’s degree in Music Composition and a master's degree in Guitar Performance from the Yerevan State Komitas Conservatory. 

When Rena Quint was 31, a cousin from Israel came to visit her in New York. She hadn’t seen or spoken to a blood relative since she was 7 years old.

“Oh Fredzia, do you remember your sister?” her cousin asked, using her Polish name.

“No, I didn’t have sisters,” Rena told him. “I had two brothers, Dovid and Yossi.”

“Oh, you were so cute, such a little girl, with your sisters,” Rena recalled her cousin, who was older, saying.

This moderated discussion features Dr. Jonathan Judaken of Rhodes College and Dr. Jeffrey Veidlinger of the University of Michigan, both the members of the Scholar Lab on Antisemitism program. As part of the discussion, Dr. Judaken and Dr. Veidlinger present on their research projects examining how major theorists of antisemitism understand its underlying causes and what prominent writers and thinkers in the historical western tradition had written about Jews, respectively, focusing on what we can learn about antisemitism from these writings. The discussion is moderated by Dr.

When Lee Liberman first viewed testimonies from USC Shoah Foundation’s Visual History Archive (VHA) almost 25 years ago, she was immediately moved to action.

“We have a commitment and duty to humanity to combat hate, and we must work diligently to bring these testimonies to communities around the globe,” she said.

More than two decades later, as Lee transitions to an emeritus role after a successful term as Chair of the Institute’s Board of Councilors, she has more than delivered on her pledge.