USC Shoah Foundation regional consultant Anna Lenchovska and education expert Oleksandr Voitenko introduced the participants to the multimedia teacher’s guide "Ukrainian Famine of 1932-1933: The Human Dimension of the Tragedy."

A lecture by Maximilian Strnad (University of Munich)Doheny Memorial Library, Room 240

Ever wonder what date USC Shoah Foundation held its first teacher-training workshop, or who was the first recipient of the Ambassadors for Humanity award? Have you ever wanted to know all of the Institute’s major accomplishments in a given year since its founding in 1994?

Cornelia Aaron Swaab says she wanted to give her testimony to USC Shoah Foundation in the hope that by sharing her own experiences with the world, she can do her part to prevent future genocides.

After spending three years studying and working in Armenia, Manuk Avedikyan is applying his passion for Armenian culture and history to USC Shoah Foundation’s new Armenian Genocide collection.Avedikyan is currently working with program administrator Hrag Yedalian on indexing the collection, which launched in the Visual History Archive on April 24, 2015, the 100th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide. Ninety testimonies are already indexed and viewable in the archive; Avedikyan expects to finish indexing the remaining 300 by this spring.

Cila talks about how incredibly generous her mother was to many people, and how she used to send various gifts to poor families to help them celebrate Shabbat.

Jerome Nemer Lecture & Film Documentary Flyer.pdf

If you’ve ever watched genocide survivor testimony from the Visual History Archive and it spurred you to wonder what you can do to help prevent acts of intolerance and inhumanity, USC Shoah Foundation has an opportunity for you this holiday season.

Haroutune Ayvazian remembers an act from a Turkish man helped saved him and his family.  

Chava Ben-Amos talks about the education she received in Auschwitz thanks to Fredy Hirsch, an advocate for children in the camps. She remembers various teachers who taught the children poetry, music, movie-making and many other subjects that impacted her life.

Educators looking for strategies and best practices for teaching using testimonies from the Visual History Archive can refer to a new guide published on the IWitness website.

The USC Shoah Foundation Center for Advanced Genocide Research invites applications from senior scholars for its 2016-2017 Center Research Fellowship. The fellowship provides $30,000 support and will be awarded to an outstanding senior scholar from any discipline who will advance genocide research through the use of the USC Shoah Foundation Visual History Archive and other USC resources.

Tana Basa talks about her pride in her Jewish identity, and how she believes her children are lucky to grow up Jewish and Catholic.

Before taking his students on a tour of Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum, high school history teacher Ferenc Sós turned to IWitness.Sós is a graduate of USC Shoah Foundation’s Teaching with Testimony in the 21st Century program in Budapest, which introduces teachers to the methodologies of using testimony from the Visual History Archive in their lessons. He was a member of the 2013 cohort.

USC Shoah Foundation executive staff, supporters and partners met in China this week for the 2015 USC Global Conference, where they shared the Institute’s mission and newest projects with an international audience.

During the weekend of October 10-11, the University of Southern California gathered international academics, musicians and members of the Los Angeles community for a symposium and series of events, collectively called Singing in the Lion’s Mouth: Music as Resistance to Genocide. Hosted by Professor Wolf Gruner of the USC Shoah Foundation Center for Advanced Genocide Research, and Professor Nick Strimple of the USC Thornton School of Music, the symposium, film screening and concert were also sponsored by USC’s Vision and Voices arts and humanities initiative. The following paragraphs are a reflection on the individual events that made up the weekend, and an exploration into the larger ideas raised in discussions over the course of the weekend.

We are sad to learn of the passing of Thomas Blatt, a Holocaust survivor who was one of the few people to survive an escape from the Sobibor death camp in 1943. He was 88.Born April 15, 1927, in Lublin, Poland, Blatt also served as a witness at the 2009 trial of the camp guard John Demjanjuk.

The IFFF Humanitarian Award is bestowed on a person, organization or film that consistently demonstrates the highest level of integrity, concern and compassion for human welfare with an abiding respect for the family bond. This year’s IFFF Humanitarian Award is presented to Mr. Eric Kabera and the film, INTORE. This powerful and touching documentary shares a story of Rwandan hope, survival and forgiveness.

Members of the USC Shoah Foundation Board of Councilors got creative during the annual board meeting in New York, Oct. 14-15.

Survivor Irene Adler reads a poem she wrote in the 1960s called "The Yellow Star," about her experiences during the Holocaust.

In this documentary, Peter Logue explores the legacy that was left behind by the members of the White Rose after they were executed at the hands of the Gestapo. Through extensive interviews with scholars and conversations with current University of Munich students, Logue asks us all to consider what we can learn from the White Rose today and, most importantly, "what would you have done?"

When it’s time for Kathleen Ralf’s class on Genocide and Human Rights to begin, her students log in from their homes all over the world. This semester, they were all able to take part in a common project through IWitness.

About a year after I joined USC Shoah Foundation, I was invited to be the keynote speaker at the Sarah and Chaim Neuberger Holocaust Education Centre’s Holocaust Education Week in Toronto. The theme that year was about memory and they had graciously invited me, the new Director of Education, to discuss memory in the context of the Institute’s education platform IWitness and testimony-based education.

Mahima Verma is a sophomore at USC studying Journalism and History. She shares how testimony is inspiring her work as an intern at the Institute.

Marina Kay is senior at USC studying at International Relations and president of USC Shoah Foundation's student organization, Defy. She shares how testimony now plays an integral part of her life in and outside of the university.

Dan-Morgan Russell is a senior at USC studying International Relations. Testimony inspires Dan to educate others and inspire policy to help those affected by atrocities.

Neuroscientist Glenn Fox is a researcher at USC Brain and Creativity Institute and used testimony from the Visual History Archive to study the affects of gratitude in the brain.

The National Science Foundation awarded the Shoah Foundation a grant of $7.5 million distributed over five years, to develop speech-recognition software for cataloging more than 116,000 hours of videotaped testimonies of Holocaust survivors and eyewitnesses, whose multilingual aspect poses special research challenges. As cataloging the testimonies is time-consuming and costly, particularly when it involves interviews in other languages, the NSF grant will support the development of a computer system that should be able to review the tapes and recognize important words and phrases.

Today Survivors of the Shoah Visual History Foundation announced that Douglas Greenberg, PhD, has been named President and Chief Executive Officer. Dr. Greenberg's appointment as Shoah Foundation President and CEO will begin September 5, 2000.

Survivors of the Shoah Visual History Foundation has added Hungary to the list of countries in which eyewitness testimonies have been recorded for its Archive. The Foundation, established in 1994 by Steven Spielberg after filming Schindler's List, is videotaping the testimonies of Holocaust survivors and other witnesses around the world.