A group of students from Chicago who inspired their fellow students to embrace each other’s unique identity has won the 2017 IWitness Video Challenge sponsored by USC Shoah Foundation.

Los Angeles, June 13, 2017 – A group of students from Chicago who inspired their fellow students to embrace each other’s unique identity has won the 2017 IWitness Video Challenge sponsored by USC Shoah Foundation.

Wolf Gruner, director of USC Shoah Foundation Center for Advanced Genocide Research, is in Oxford, Frankfurt and Berlin this week speaking about his research and his latest book on the persecution of Jews in Bohemia and Moravia during the Holocaust.

There are still spots available for educators to participate in the Holocaust Educators Network Summer Seminar on Holocaust education and social justice, to be held July 23-29, 2017.

IWitness Video Challenge winner Alana Chandler gravitated toward the subject of identity in her project because she has always grappled with her own. Growing up Jewish and Japanese (and attending a Jewish middle school and Japanese Saturday school), Alana said she often felt torn between the two sides of her identity. At the middle school, kids joked about her Japanese heritage, and at Saturday school, kids expressed confusion about her religion.

The staff at USC Shoah Foundation is saddened to learn about recent the passing of Asa Shapiro, father of board member Mickey Shapiro and Holocaust survivor.

When Park Avenue Synagogue began preparing for its women’s trip to Poland, they turned to IWitness to help travelers prepare for the historical context of the trip.

Yu Jing Chen, a rising senior at Walter Payton College Preparatory High School in Chicago, teamed up with two classmates to produce the grand prize-winning entry of the 2017 IWitness Video Challenge.

USC Shoah Foundation’s newest testimonies of Nanjing Massacre survivors and its New Dimensions in Testimony interview of Nanjing Massacre survivor Xia Shuqin are drawing closer to being made available to the public.

Jewish survivor Harry Rosenbach shares a story about what he did with one of his most prized posessions while he was attempting to flee Germany as a refugee.

IWitness will be one of several educational resources demonstrated to teachers at the Eva and Eugene Schlesinger Teacher Training Endowed Workshop July 10-14, 2017, at California State University Long Beach.

Henry explains how difficult it was to survive in a new country a young refugee.

Stroud’s book chapter is titled “Rethinking Resilience: Considerations on Resilience in Indonesia After 1965.”

Lily Schwarzschild describes helping Holocaust survivors rehabilitate at a displaced persons (DP) camp in Germany.

IWitness Video Challenge winner Natalia Wang was inspired by testimony in IWitness to share a message of acceptance with her whole school. Natalia and her teammates Alana Chandler and Yu Jing Chen won the 2017 contest with their video “Who Are You? Embracing Identity in Our Community.” The three are rising seniors at Walter Payton College Preparatory High School in Chicago, and were encouraged to enter the contest by their teacher Matt Silvia.

USC Shoah Foundation Chief Technology Officer Sam Gustman will give a talk at the annual American Libraries Association conference this Saturday in Chicago.

Zdenka describes First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt's visit to the Fort Ontario refugee camp and what she did to ensure that all the children in the camp got their education.

While students across America enjoy their summer vacation, the education department at USC Shoah Foundation is busily making major new features to its award-winning IWitness educational website for educators and their students that will be ready by the time school resumes in the fall.

After discovering Professor Melissa Kravetz’s IWitness “digital essay” assignment on an internet forum for historians, Visiting Assistant Professor of History April Trask developed her own assignment for her students at Amherst College that many students say is one of the most meaningful they’ve done. Trask has long been interested in digital pedagogy and wanted to find digital resources for her history students at Amherst that offered more than just a digital presentation of traditional written materials, she said.

Two supporters of USC Shoah Foundation, Leonard Blavatnik and Trevor Pears, and Holocaust survivor Frank Lowy were awarded knighthoods in Queen Elizabeth II’s 2017 Birthday Honors List.

Holocaust survivor Sir Frank Lowy speaks about the causes that are important to him.

LOS ANGELES - June 26, 2017 – While students across America enjoy their summer vacation, the education department at USC Shoah Foundation is busily making major new features to its award-winning IWitness educational website for educators and their students that will be ready by the time school resumes in the fall. Coming on the heels of a successful initiative, 100 Days to Inspire Respect, these new offerings will further support educators around the world by building new and innovative ways to inspire respect and empower students to take positive action in the world.

The workshop in Venice is titled “Data Sharing, Holocaust Documentation and the Digital Humanities. Best Practices, Case Studies, Benefits.”

Marcel Mahdal, a graduate of the USC Shoah Foundation Master Teacher program in Czech Republic launched a project last week in which students from two schools work together to create their own local IWalk.

Hilda describes the living conditions in the Uherský Brod ghetto in Czechoslovakia. After four years in the ghetto, she and her family were deported to Theresienstadt.

In one testimony in the Visual History Archive, a Rwandan Tutsi Genocide survivor recounts a disturbing story from his childhood: At his school, he and the other Tutsi students were put on lockdown in their dorms while the school administrators met with the Hutu students to tell them that their Tutsi classmates were plotting to kill them.

Megan Arizmendi is a recent USC graduate, with a Bachelor's degree in business administration and film. With a passion for the intersection of film and education, she was introduced to USC Shoah Foundation, and is an intern in the communications department. She is committed to helping educate future generations on genocide through the power of film, in hopes of preventing violence and discrimination in years to come.

The Fourth of July has become an annual norm for me - filled with hot dogs and hamburgers, red white and blue. However, this year is a bit different for me. Working at USC Shoah Foundation has opened my eyes, and taught me that this holiday goes far beyond the parties and decorations.

Angelica explains why she feels it is important for people to stay informed and involved in social activism in order to promote tolerance.