The conference included a night of films, an academic symposium and a concert, all exploring music as it has been used as a form of resistance to genocides throughout history.

Jehovah's Witness survivor Simone Maria Liebster describes her last night with her mother in a hotel before her mother had to leave her at a Jehovah's Witness re-education center in Germany. They prayed and sang together.

Joseph Horn describes the Auschwitz camp orchestra, which was made up of some of the best musicians in Europe. He distinctly remembers that the orchestra's concerts every Sunday were scheduled so the local townspeople could come into the camp after church and attend the concert. 

Musicologist Matt Lawson came to “Singing in the Lion’s Mouth: Music as Resistance to Genocide” conference hoping for feedback on one of his newest research ideas, and he wasn’t disappointed.

A few weeks ago, USC Student Body President Rini Sampath posted on her Facebook page about incidents of hatred and intolerance on campus. A Saturday night after a USC football game, Sampath had been walking down USC’s Fraternity Row when a man leaned out his frat house window and hurled a racial epithet and a beverage cup at her.

Vera Laska describes how, as a teenager, she helped Jews and French political prisoners cross the mountains from Slovakia into Hungary. This clip is part of the new Facing History and Ourselves IWitness activity Choosing to Rescue.

Dead Loop, a new book written by Holocaust survivor Moris Bronshteyn, was born out of a promise he made to the other survivors he interviewed for USC Shoah Foundation.

USC Shoah Foundation and Facing History and Ourselves have established a partnership in order to develop meaningful and engaging learning resources centered on Holocaust survivor testimonies.

Bronia Furst talks about being reunited with her family in the concentration camp in Pechora, Soviet Union. She says that her daily life was terrible because the camp was like a starvation camp and she would watch dead bodies be taken from the barracks everyday. Everyone continuously lived in fear.

Laura Pritchard Dobrin, an IWitness Teaching Fellow and educator who participated in Auschwitz: The Past is Present, gave a presentation about IWitness at the Virginia Association of Teachers of English (VATE) 2015 Annual Conference last weekend.

Liesl Loeb describes how her home was attacked during Kristallnacht. Her family's non-Jewish tenant hid the family upstairs and they listened as vandals destroyed the entire first floor of their house. This clip is part of the new IWitness activity Information Quest: Kristallnacht.

Member of Ukrainian Parliament, Viktor Pinchuk, has made a generous contribution to support the production of a new documentary film that will rely upon the testimonies in the Shoah Foundation archive recorded in Ukraine. Mr. Pinchuk, who initiated the project, is the founder of Interpipe Scientific and Industrial Production Group. The 18-month project also includes the creation of a study guide for students and teachers that will be based on the film.

IWitness has published a new activity about Kristallnacht just in time for its 77th anniversary this November.

To commemorate the International Day of Memory that marks the 60 th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, the Shoah Foundation will open two national European Visual History Collections of videotaped interviews with Holocaust survivors and other witnesses. The Archivio Centrale dello Stato (Central State Archive) in Rome, and the Centre de documentation juive contemporaine (CDJC) in Paris will house the Italian and French Collections respectively.

In a ceremony held today in Rome commemorating the Day of Memory, the Archivio Centrale dello Stato (Central State Archive), together with Survivors of the Shoah Visual History Foundation, announced that the Foundation’s videotaped interviews of more than 400 Holocaust survivors and other witnesses are now available for public viewing and educational use at the Archivio. The testimonies contained in this national collection were either recorded in the Italian language or in Italy.

Echoes and Reflections—a multimedia curriculum on the Holocaust (www.echoesandreflections.org) is the result of an unprecedented partnership, combining the national outreach network of the Anti-Defamation League, the unmatched visual history resources of the Shoah Foundation, and the historical expertise of Yad Vashem. The pedagogical experience of the three organizations produced the most comprehensive curriculum on the Holocaust available to date.

«Якщо у вас є цікава історія про шкільну дружбу, яка відбувалася у 1932-1933 роках, попрацюйте з нею. Діти точно її запам’ятають, а разом з нею і особливості періоду Голодомору стануть більш релевантними, діти намагатимуться зрозуміти, що відбувалося в ті часи.»- Олександр Войтенко, автор навчально-методичного семінару «Голодомор 1932-1933: людський вимір трагедії»

Survivors of the Shoah Visual History Foundation, the nonprofit organization established by Steven Spielberg to videotape the firsthand testimonies of Holocaust survivors and witnesses and make them accessible for educational purposes, is co-sponsoring legislation that will be introduced into the California State Assembly today.

Broken Silence, a “CINEMAX Reel Life” series of five documentary films by distinguished international directors, will debut on CINEMAX on five consecutive nights next April 15-19. This unique event is presented by Steven Spielberg and Survivors of the Shoah Visual History Foundation and produced by Academy Award Winning documentary filmmaker James Moll (the Oscar-winning HBO documentary “The Last Days”), and will debut in conjunction with Holocaust Remembrance Day, Yom Hashoah.

Today Survivors of the Shoah Visual History Foundation, the nonprofit organization that videotapes the firsthand testimonies of Holocaust survivors and other witnesses and make them accessible for educational purposes, opened a rare collection of Sinti and Roma Holocaust survivor testimonies at the Dokumentations und Kulturzentrum Deutscher Sinti und Roma (Documentation and Culture Centre of the German Sinti and Roma) in Heidelberg.

Today, in a ceremony held at the Dachau Concentration Camp Memorial Site, Survivors of the Shoah Visual History Foundation,together with the Bavarian Ministry for Culture and Education, announced the distribution of the German-language educational CD-ROM, Remembering: for the Present and the Future to Bavarian secondary schools.

Today supporters of the Shoah Foundation celebrated the dedication of the new Tapper Research and Testing Center at the Foundation’s Los Angeles headquarters. The dedication of the Center, named for benefactor Albert M. Tapper, marks a major milestone for the Foundation, making the rich resources in the Shoah Foundation archive available to students, educators and scholars.

USC Professor of History Wolf Gruner directs USC Dornsife Center for Advance Genocide Research and sets its research agenda. Gruner also holds the Shapell- Guerin Chair in Jewish Studies at the university. An internationally recognized expert on genocide, Gruner has published 10 books and numerous articles on the Holocaust in Europe as well as on mass violence against indigenous people in Latin America.        

Polish Jewish survivor Martin Becker speaks about meeting the nephew of the great mufti al-Husseini while he studied in Egypt before World War II.Becker's testimony was recorded in 1993 by Jewish Family and Children’s Services’ (JFCS) Holocaust Center in San Francisco.

There is a current controversy about the allegation that the great mufti of Jerusalem instigated the final solution of the Nazis. While there is no doubt that Haj Amin al-Husseini, was a virulent anti-Semite, history shows that the Final Solution was conceived and implemented by Nazis and nobody else.

Families exploring USC at Trojan Family Weekend are invited to visit the USC Shoah Foundation exhibit to learn more about the Visual History Archive.

Marika Abrams talks about her experiences speaking to students about the Holocaust.

Sonya Perl discusses the Great Famine of Ukraine in 1932-1933. She says that in the years leading up to the famine, people were so hungry that they would sometimes resort to cannibalism.

Edith talks about what she has learned about her life because of the Holocaust and how it has impacted her relationship with her children. She talks about trying to open communication with future generations and serving as a role model.

During one of the most joyous times in her life, 13-year-old Mia Michaels decided to honor the survivors and victims of one of the darkest periods in history. Mia’s parents, Larry Michaels and Tamar Elkeles, have been USC Shoah Foundation donors for over 10 years, and her grandfather Gidon Elkeles fled Nazi Germany at age three while many other relatives were killed in the Holocaust. When it came time for her to decide on a project for her bat mitzvah, she wanted to connect to her family history and learn about how her past is part of her future, Tamar said.