Sedda Antekelian, a member of USC Shoah Foundation’s education team, never knew her own great grandmother had recorded testimony about surviving the Armenian Genocide. Hearing her great grandmother’s voice for the first time has brought Sedda closer to family, filled in gaps about her own history, and opened even more questions.

April 7 is the International Day of Reflection on the 1994 Genocide Against the Tutsi in Rwanda. The day of remembrance marks the start of the 100-day genocidal campaign in which an estimated 800,000 Rwandans—mainly Tutsis and moderate Hutus—were killed by well-organized mobs of Hutu extremists. Edith Umugiraneza, a survivor of the 1994 Genocide Against the Tutsi in Rwanda who now works for USC Shoah Foundation, says false information and manipulated facts helped ignite and sustain the violence, and even today threaten to distort our understanding of events.

The USC Shoah Foundation mourns the passing of Damas Gisimba, the director of a Kigali orphanage who sheltered and saved the lives of over 400 people, mostly children, during the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda. Later in life, he headed the Gisimba Memorial Center, a charitable organization that provided after-school programs for disadvantaged children and served as a place of remembrance for victims of the genocide.

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Rachel Peacock has a B.S. in Telecommunications Production from University of Florida's College of Journalism and Communications. She has eight years of professional experience in educational video production, broadcast production, and project management. Rachel manages scheduling and production for new testimonies conducted by USC Shoah Foundation for the Holocaust and Countering Antisemitism Through Testimony (CATT) Collections.

Lindsay is the Managing Director of Echoes & Reflections, the Institute's flagship Holocaust Education program in partnership with ADL and Yad Vashem. In this role, she leads strategic planning and the ongoing programmatic and operational oversight to ensure successful reach of goals and objectives of the Partnership. Lindsay holds an MEd from the University of Vermont and a BA in History from Northwestern University. She has held a range of leadership positions in the non-profit education field for more than 25 years. Lindsay is based outside of Chicago, IL.

The standard narrative of Jews as moneylenders in medieval Europe gained prominence in the 19th and 20th centuries and persists today. How did this myth emerge as a response to modern political antisemitism? Join us on December 5 as Professor Julie Mell, author of The Myth of the Medieval Jewish Moneylender, challenges this narrative. She will explore its origins, revealing that it was not a reflection of social reality in medieval Europe but rather an outgrowth of Christian crusading and economic theology.

   

Raquel Diaz Serralta is the Learning and Development Specialist for Primary Education. She creates developmentally appropriate testimony-based educational content, delivers training, and collaborates with partners. 

Campuses and communities alike have been roiled by intensified antisemitism in the wake of the Hamas assault. The worsening environment shows little evidence of disappearing. What are its roots and what can we do to combat it?

For the inaugural event in the Stanley D. Ginsburg USC Shoah Foundation Lecture Series, Mélanie Péron will explore the work of Hélène Berr, a volunteer at the Union Générale des Israélites de France (UGIF) who sheltered four Jewish children during the occupation of France.

Steve's passion for fighting antisemitism and educating the next generation led him to join the Board of Councilors in 1997 when the organization was in its infancy. He has remained committed to our mission, serving as Chair of the Board of Councilors from 2015 to 2019.

Holocaust survivor Clara Isaacman  recalls the cross-cultural joy of the holiday season when she was growing up in Antwerp, Belgium.

New York, NY (October 14, 2024) —Nearly 700 guests convened for an unforgettable evening of celebration and inspiration at the USC Shoah Foundation’s Ambassadors for Humanity Gala. This milestone event marked the institute's 30th anniversary, honoring the resilience of Holocaust survivors while emphasizing the critical importance of preserving their testimonies for future generations. 

The Division of Academic Programs at the USC Shoah Foundation invites applications for its Sandy and Steve Cozen Graduate Top-Off Fellowship for the 2025-2026/ 2026-2027 academic years.

Join us for a talk examining the strategies of concealment described in the USC Shoah Foundation testimonies of Jewish refugees who made the journey to Japan to escape Nazi persecution in the early 1940s.

We are grateful that so many of these survivors, partners, friends, and family members have entrusted us to share their stories for future generations, and for the passion and dedication they brought in support of our mission.

Join us online for a timely two-part program that brings together leading experts to examine the complex intersection of technologies, digital platforms, and antisemitism.

At a time when antisemitism is on the rise, USC Shoah Foundation’s Countering Antisemitism Through Testimony program aims to push back against its spread. The Institute has been recording video testimonies of people whose lives have been disrupted by contemporary acts of violent or virulent antisemitism, as well as experts on the matter and advocates who have made a dedicated effort to counter the hate. This video includes excerpts of testimonies from survivors and witnesses of a synagogue attack in Copenhagen that USC Shoah Foundation recorded for this new collection.

For weeks, Eva (Geiringer) Schloss and a small band of young women had been exploring the far corners of the women’s section of Auschwitz-Birkenau, alone and, for the first time in months, unwatched. It was January 1945, and Allied forces were nearing the camp. The SS had already evacuated most of the surviving inmates by way of middle-of-the-night marches in freezing temperatures. The gas chambers and crematoria had been destroyed. The SS guards had fled.

On the afternoon of January 27, 1945, the Red Army liberated Auschwitz, a complex of concentration and extermination camps. Although most of the prisoners were sent on a death march before the Soviet troops arrived, around 7,000 still remained at Auschwitz. The date of the liberation is recognized by the United Nations as International Holocaust Remembrance Day.