January 18, 2012: Resistance during the Holocaust is still mostly seen in terms of organized or armed group activities, yet this perspective overlooks individual acts of opposition. Up to now, the availability of sources for analyzing the behavior of German Jews has been limited. Historians used reports originated by the Nazi state and/or written post-war testimonies. In those sources individual acts of opposition barely emerge. However, a closer analysis of the micro level of Nazi society challenges the common image of German Jews as passive victims.

September 27, 2012: Cambodian genocide survivor Kosal Path, a lecturer in the USC School of International Relations and a USC Shoah Foundation Fellow, discussed his research on social rehabilitation in post-genocide Cambodia.

In this clip, Madame Chen describes the killing of her family members, and explains how she managed to escape from a Japanese soldier.

Leon Gersten and some of his family escaped the Frystak ghetto in Poland and hid with a Polish family for almost two years. Leon remembers when police officials entered the home of the Polish family looking for Jews and he recalls how much the family sacrificed.

Helena Jonas Rosenzweig reflects on how generous her parents were to those in need. She remembers when her father was deported from the Krakow (Cracow) ghetto in Poland to a concentration camp and how his deportation affected her mother.

Irene Klass reflects on the horrible living conditions in the Warsaw ghetto. She remembers her family would sing together in the evening for entertainment since they didn’t have any radio or newspapers available.

Ingeborg Kantor worked at a German ammunition factory in Berlin under forced labor. She remembers a forelady who would sneak her and the other female workers pieces of food. Ingeborg states that she was the only one out of that group of woman to survive the Holocaust and after the war she connected with the forelady.

Izchak Goldblatt remembers the food rations at the Wolfsberg concentration camp, which was a sub-camp of Gross Rosen. He reflects that as the months went on the conditions at the camp worsen including less food portions and the spread of diseases.

While deployed in France, US armed forces liberator Jules Barrash remembers asking a French farm couple to cook him and a group of about 15 soldiers a dinner for Christmas in exchange for sea rations and food from the army.

Harold Alexander fled Nazi controlled Germany to the United States and then joined the United States Army. He returned to Germany towards the end of WWII as an American soldier and met a Jewish woman who was still in hiding. He remembers helping the woman and her family by bringing them a truck full of food and connecting them to family in the United States.

Recalling his time held in different concentration camps where he met several inhabitants who were not Jewish, Simon Wiesenthal addresses the need to provide a united front in fighting against another recurrence.

Chiune Sugihara, a Japanese diplomat helped thousands of Jews flee to Japan by issuing them Japanese transit visas. Abraham Brumberg and his family were saved because of Sugihara’s brave efforts. Brumberg remembers the journey from Europe to Japan and recalls his first impression of the islands of Japan. 

Esther Bem desires future generations to know there were some virtuous individuals during the Holocaust, who sacrificed their security and life, in order to help others.

April 16, 2012: In an exclusive trip from Jerusalem to Los Angeles, Yehuda Bauer brought more than five decades of experience as a pre-eminent international advisor and scholar on the Holocaust to USC for this special engagement.

November 15, 2012: Dr. Sean Field discussed oral histories in the context of both the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and the Centre for Popular Memory in South Africa and approaches to studying memories of violence.

November 7, 2013: How does location impact the way teaching the Holocaust is approached? USC Shoah Foundation brought together Professors Yehuda Bauer and Xu Xin for the first time in a discussion of the differences of teaching Jewish Studies and the Holocaust in Israel and China. Each will explore the challenges they face in dealing with the Holocaust and comparative genocide in their cultural, linguistic, and historical context.

by Zoe Jablow

by Kevin Vavasseur

by Taylor Crisp

by Armen Ter Zakarian

by John Ingram

by Youssef Biaz

by Vincent Quek

April 12, 2012: British poet Richard Berengarten (previously known as Richard Burns)  read from his book

by Jordan McKittrick

by Alison Chen

by Jee Woo Choi

by Brie Da Silveria

by Conner Vidano