One of Poland's most beloved films is a unique example of music uniting both Jews and gentiles in the immediate post-war period that would soon become very difficult to find anywhere else.

At a first glance The Yellow Spot: The Extermination of the Jews in Germany is a book about the Holocaust. But in fact, it was published in 1936, after just three years of Nazi rule — and a full five years before the first gas chambers were commissioned for the murder of European Jewry. The authors spend 287 pages detailing a series of laws and actions taken against the Jews. Their conclusion was that the “legal disability” being imposed by the Nazis upon the Jews ultimately would result in their elimination. (Originally published by The Hollywood Reporter.)

For a German like myself, International Holocaust Remembrance Day is a day that is both intensely private and profoundly public.

Over the past few years, USC Shoah Foundation has embarked upon two interactive media projects which have already emerged as groundbreaking endeavors in the field – the “New Dimensions in Testimony” project, and this year’s The Last Goodbye immersive virtual reality experience that has made waves at the Tribeca Film Festival’s Virtual Arcade.

The Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies at Yale University Libraries and the University of Southern California Libraries Collections Convergence Initiative invite applications from postdoctoral scholars for their 2019-2020 Postdoctoral Research Fellowship. The fellowship offers a salary of $50,000, medical benefits, as well as a fixed amount for moving expenses between New Haven and Los Angeles. The fellowship will be awarded to an outstanding postdoctoral scholar from any discipline who will advance genocide research through the comparative analysis of testimonies by Holocaust survivors who gave interviews to both the Fortunoff Video Archive and the USC Shoah Foundation.

“The Stories We Tell: Narratives of Sexual Violence and Concepts of Gender in Post-Genocide Societies” Virginia Bullington (USC undergraduate, Narrative Studies) 2018 Beth and Arthur Lev Student Research Fellow January 23, 2019

This week, more than 20,000 people will attend Liberation 75, a virtual, global gathering for Holocaust survivors, their descendants, scholars, educators, and the wider community. The online conference, taking place May 4 to 9, is cosponsored by more than 200 organizations, including USC Shoah Foundation.

Roman Kent, Auschwitz survivor, speaking at the commemorationIt took months of preparation. But there is little one can do to prepare for a visit to Auschwitz.

As I completed the transaction for my first foray with Airbnb for a trip to Paris with my daughter, I was pleasantly surprised by the note that popped up from Christophe, the manager, who alerted me that I could also have a ride from the airport with Karyn with whom he has an arrangement. 

On Tuesday, March 10, 2015, the USC Center for Advanced Genocide Research hosted a lecture from Dr. Peter Hayes who spoke before a packed room at USC on the complex relationship between anti-Semitism and homophobia exerted in Nazi-occupied territories during World War II. The Theodore Zev Weiss Holocaust Educational Foundation Professor at Northwestern University specializes in 20th-century German History, writing extensively on German industry under the Nazis. Monday's lecture, however, focused on the evolution of his views on a comparison that he was previously reluctant to address.

Benjamin Madley gave a public lecture at the USC Shoah Foundation Center for Advanced Genocide Research focusing on his new book, “An American Genocide: The United States and the California Indian Catastrophe, 1846-1873."

Today we mourn the loss of one of our closest friends, Branko Lustig, a Holocaust survivor and two-time Academy Award winner who produced Schindler’s List and played an indispensable role in the founding of USC Shoah Foundation. He was 87. Shortly after the film’s 1993 release, Lustig -- who witnessed horrific atrocities at Auschwitz, Bergen-Belsen and other concentration and labor camps -- led the drive to implement Steven Spielberg’s vision of collecting 50,000 Holocaust testimonies for what was then called Survivors of the Shoah Visual History Foundation.

One morning in 1978, Theary Seng awoke alongside her younger brother in their prison cell in Boeng Rai Security Center, about 100 kilometers south of their hometown of Phnom Penh, Cambodia. The children’s mother had been in the cell the night before, but now she was gone. 

One morning in 1978, Theary Seng awoke alongside her younger brother in their prison cell in Boeng Rai Security Center, about 100 kilometers south of their hometown of Phnom Penh, Cambodia. The children’s mother had been in the cell the night before, but now she was gone.

The last Holocaust survivor to record an interview for USC Shoah Foundation’s New Dimensions in Testimony program in 2015 was Eva Schloss, survivor of Auschwitz-Birkenau and Anne Frank’s stepsister.

Emily Bengels’s students are already well on their way to submitting their projects to the IWitness Video Challenge.

Across the United States and in Europe, USC Shoah Foundation is helping to commemorate Yom HaShoah, Holocaust Remembrance Day, on May 4 and 5.

USC Shoah Foundation’s social media accounts helped thousands of people around the world share and commemorate Genocide Awareness Month this April with stories, photos, video clips and more.

USC Shoah Foundation is accepting applications from students interested in working with testimony for the third year of the Institute’s Junior Intern Program.

A group of over a dozen educators representing the so-called Visegrad countries – a bloc of Central European countries including the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia – met for a second time to experience and discuss the power of the IWalks and IWitness activities developed by USC Shoah Foundation.

A critical element in countering hate and inspiring respect is an understanding of culture and learning to value cultural differences.

USC Shoah Foundation has partnered with The Memory Project Productions to debut a new IWitness activity and incorporate testimony into the organization’s curriculum.

Stroud’s book chapter is titled “Rethinking Resilience: Considerations on Resilience in Indonesia After 1965.”

The Museum of Jewish Heritage’s – A Living Memorial to the Holocaust's pilot NDT installation marks the world premiere of the NDT testimony of Eva Schloss, a survivor of Auschwitz-Birkenau and the posthumous stepsister of Anne Frank.

Genocide Awareness Month shines a light on the Central African Republic and the testimony of Alain Lazaret, a witness to the conflict pitting Muslims against Christians.

The Stronger Than Hate initiative will publish stories on a regular basis that will each highlight a separate learning activity in IWitness, tackling some of today’s toughest subjects for students in middle school, high school and universities.

In the article, Spielberg tours the Institute’s new global headquarters and explains its expanded mission to use testimony from genocide survivors to counteract a rising tide of hate.

An Unprecedented Partnership with Orlando Holocaust Museum for Hope & Humanity The Holocaust Memorial Resource & Education Center of Florida has partnered with USC Shoah Foundation to be a content and creative partner in the development of the new Holocaust museum to be located in downtown Orlando. This marks the first time USC Shoah Foundation has teamed with a Holocaust museum as they design, develop, and implement a ground-up and permanent museum-wide exhibition.

In January 2017, USC Shoah Foundation launched 100 Days to Inspire Respect to provide teachers of civics, history, English and other subjects new thought-provoking resources for the first 100 days of the incoming administration.   

A group of 30 second-grade children in New York City took part in a Tour for Tolerance event earlier this month that featured a virtual read-along given by famed broadcaster and Holocaust survivor Dr. Ruth Westheimer. Delivered virtually to students at the Glenn Morris School (PS100) in Queens, New York, the program was a pilot initiative of Tour for Tolerance and USC Shoah Foundation.