Jewish survivor Lotte Kramer discusses the way her poetry has transformed her outlook on life and the Holocaust. Feeling like an outsider in an unfamiliar environment brought up a lot of memories, which were then turned into poems. Her writing has allowed her to open up about her experiences and given her an outlet to share her stories in a very beautiful way.

Drawing on USC Shoah Foundation oral history videos, personal papers, and other sources, Dr. Diane Marie Amann's lecture situates stories of the unsung women who played vital roles at Nuremberg in the context of the Nuremberg trials themselves, international law, and the postwar global society. Diane Marie Amann is the inaugural 2017-2018 Breslauer, Rutman and Anderson Research Fellow.

This one-hour documentary explores the journeys of Liberators and Liberation Witnesses drawing parallels between the past and present. These one-of-a-kind stories of World War II heroes serve as a compelling reminder of what is at stake as antisemitism and xenophobia are on the rise again, and as a call to action to stand against hatred in all its forms.

In 2018, USC Shoah Foundation launched an initiative to address requests from survivors who, for complex and often very personal reasons, could not come forward in the 1990s. Since the start of COVID, the foundation has received more than 400 requests from survivors to record their testimonies. We believe there are thousands more who want to tell their stories. 

Clara Isaacman didn’t speak about her experience hiding from the Nazis in Belgium until about 20 years later. She reflects on how Elie Wiesel inspired her to write a book about her survival called, Clara’s Story. Clara’s testimony is featured in the IWitness activity, The Power of Words.

In 2018, USC Shoah Foundation launched an Initiative to address requests from survivors who, for complex and often very personal reasons, could not come forward in the 1990s. Since the start of COVID, the foundation has received more than 400 requests from survivors to record their testimonies. We believe there are thousands more who want to tell their stories. 

May 18, 2016 5 -6:30 p.m. UC Irvine, Merage School Auditorium (SB1, First Floor, Room 1200) Speaker: Stephen Smith, Executive Director, USC Shoah Foundation

High school students from Sopron, Hungary, have created a traveling exhibition to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the deportations of Jews from Hungary during World War II, drawing from USC Shoah Foundation’s Visual History Archive for their research.

A collection of testimony clips of Holocaust survivors who remembering hearing about the pogrom in the Polish town of Kielce.  On July 4, 1946, mobs of Polish people attacked Jewish refugees and survivors returning to their homes after World War II had ended. In these testimony clips eyewitnesses recount the story of how over 40 Jewish people were murdered after they had already survived the Holocaust.  

As a girl in Budapest, Olga Menczer always looked forward to the fourth night of Hanukkah—when she finally got her turn to light the family menorah. Olga recorded her story of survival with us in 1998 and continued to educate her community in New Jersey for many years. We join Olga in wishing all who are sharing in the light a happy fourth candle.

Jewish SurvivorHear Ferdinand Tyroler tell the story of how he and Edith Weiss, two teenagers who met in the Auschwitz III-Monowitz slave labor camp, fell in love under unimaginable circumstances. Ferdinand recalls how, in spite of fear and constant threat of death, he and Edith managed to find hope in each other, dreaming of their future together. 

New Dimensions in Testimony has been a work of passion for USC Shoah Foundation since 2010. After years of development at the University of Southern California including with USC Institute for Creative Technologies and with content developer Conscience Display, the program is now reaching audiences in museums around the world.

On this day, 27 years ago, my city of Sarajevo became a besieged city, and remained such for the following four years. A seven-year old at the time, I remember those first days of April of 1992 well. On one of them, my family’s Yugo 45 – an iconic car model of the former Yugoslavia – broke down right next to the Kasarna Maršala Tita (military barracks), where the U.S. Embassy is located today. Without a car, we could not go home that night, so we returned to my grandparents’ house. Later that night, the Bosnian Serb forces took away all the Bosnian Muslim men from our street and killed them. That Yugo 45, which we sold for some firewood months later, saved my father. This is how I remember that April of 1992.

USC Shoah Foundation is partnering with the American Sephardi Federation and other organizations to undertake the Sephardi and Mizrahi Jewish Testimony Collection, a new initiative to document the Sephardi and Mizrahi experience during World War II and the Holocaust.

Following the success of two visits by the Holocaust Geographies Collaborative research group to USC Shoah Foundation Center for Advanced Genocide Research, the next recipients of the annual Interdisciplinary Research Week fellowship have been chosen.

Virtual reality lab LightShed, in partnership with USC Shoah Foundation, MPC VR, OTOY, Inc., and HERE BE DRAGONS, proudly announce the world premiere of the first-ever Holocaust survivor testimony in room-scale VR, THE LAST GOODBYE, at the 2017 Tribeca Film Festival, presented by AT&T.

In a webinar interview, the film’s director and the Institute’s founder says he believes that 25 years after the release of 'Schindler's List,' the film is more important than ever. “Especially for the young people today, who face a country and a world where democracy is threatened.”

Two USC scholars – graduate students Emily Geminder and Vaclav Masek - will share the Beth and Arthur Lev Student Research Fellowship for Summer 2022.

I recently returned to China to record audio-visual testimonies from survivors of the 1937 Nanjing Massacre. In February 2014, the Institute incorporated 12 Nanjing testimonies into its Visual History Archive, adding a new perspective to the 53,000 testimonies that we collected from the Holocaust and the Rwandan Tutsi Genocide.

Charlotte Knobloch, born in Munich in 1932, survived the Holocaust disguised as a Christian child on a Bavarian farm. After the war, she reunited with her father and remained in Germany, eventually dedicating her life to combating antisemitism. The XR Experience “Inside Kristallnacht” centers on her story.  In this message to her grandchildren, Dr. Knobloch emphasized the importance of taking pride in one’s Judaism in an era of antisemitism and misinformation.

Looking for an opportunity to make a difference in the world? Join the team at USC Shoah Foundation. Our mission is to give opportunity to survivors and witnesses to the Shoah—the genocide of the Jews—to tell their own stories in their own words in audio-visual interviews, preserve their testimonies, and make them accessible for research, education, and outreach for the betterment of humankind in perpetuity.

Leopold Page survived the Holocaust by working in Oskar Schindler’s factory. Page remembers how Mr. and Mrs. Schindler saved hundreds of Jews by taking them off cattle train when no other camp would accept them. Also the Schindlers gave personal medical attention   to the very sick. Page was instrumental in telling Oskar Schindler’s heroic story, which led to the book and later the movie, Schindler’s List.

Two women brought together as a result of the genocide in Rwanda share their story.When Rwandans were called upon to kill all Tutsi, some refused. Throughout the country Hutu tried to help and hide Tutsi - thousands paid with their lives. In their hearts, these people believed that what they were being told to do was wrong, and that it was more important to protect life than to follow orders.

In recognition of his efforts to protect human rights, his commitment to education and his work advancing opportunities for all people, President Barack Obama was presented May 7 with the Ambassador for Humanity Award by Steven Spielberg.

Noémi Ban remembers the very first time she saw members of the SS, right before she and her family were deported to Auschwitz. She recalls the terrifying journey in the cattle cars from Hungary to Poland and also her first impressions of the concentration camp. This clip reel of Noémi’s testimony is featured in the IWitness activity My Story Matters.

Seventy years after the camp was liberated, institute helps bring survivors, teachers and others to milestone event. The Auschwitz camp is seen at the end of the tracks.

On Tuesday, April 19, Celina Biniaz and Edith Umugiraneza will read poetry they’ve written about their experiences during the Holocaust and the Rwandan Genocide, respectively, in “When Memories Unfold: Poetry After Genocide.”

The regional finalists of the IWitness Video Challenge were inspired by genocide testimony to serve food to the needy, inspire and motivate those who are struggling, honor the elderly and more.

The 27 interviews, recorded January 6-18, 2017, will bring the total number of testimonies in the collection to 103.

Holocaust Museum Houston this weekend will become the fourth museum in the world to permanently display USC Shoah Foundation’s Dimensions in Testimony, which enables viewers to verbally ask questions to a digital projection of survivors, and hear real-time, lifelike responses. The new exhibit features Houston-area Holocaust survivor William J. “Bill” Morgan, a 93-year-old survivor of the Stanislawow Ghetto in western Ukraine.