Miriam Katin survived the Holocaust as a toddler because her quick-thinking mother faked their deaths in Budapest at a historically perilous time for Jews in Hungary. Now 77, Katin has a thriving career as a graphic artist whose humor cartoons have appeared in The New Yorker. Her remarkable oral history would have been lost to time without the initiative by USC Shoah Foundation to document the stories of Holocaust survivors before it is too late.

One of the members of the 2014 Teaching with Testimony in the 21st Century cohort in Hungary didn’t have any need for new lesson plans for his students, and in fact he didn’t even have a first day of school to prepare for: he’s retired. But he didn’t let that stop him from learning about how testimony can be used to teach students about genocide and tolerance.

Music is the purest form of communication. It transcends language and ignores the passage of time. It can be euphoric and elegiac, subtle and sublime. It joyously welcomes life and mournfully greets death. It can provide glimmers of hope and comfort in a world devoid of hope and comfort.

Longtime USC Shoah Foundation Executive Committee and Board of Councilors member Mickey Shapiro has provided a major endowed gift to create an inaugural academic chair at the Institute that will be dedicated to deepening the study of the impact of Holocaust education.

Resources this week engage students to think about the experiences of women in a variety of contexts.

The New York Times recently published a piece about the rerelease of a book that spotlighted the efforts of non-Jewish Europeans who risked their lives to protect Jews during the Holocaust. The rerelease coincides with the 30th anniversary of the book, “Rescuers.” At least three of the featured rescuers gave testimonies to USC Shoah Foundation. Here are their stories.

Paul Engel est né le 4 mai 1922 à Vienne (Autriche) dans une famille juive de la classe moyenne. Il a un jeune frère, Robert. Lorsque la Première Guerre mondiale éclate en 1914, son père, Eduard, est mobilisé dans l’armée austro-hongroise. Fait prisonnier de guerre, celui-ci passe six ans en Sibérie à travailler dans une mine de charbon, avant de retrouver sa famille en 1920. À Vienne, Eduard possède une magasin de parfums en gros. Avant la guerre, Paul fréquente une école primaire et entre au lycée du 14ème district de Vienne.

As part of USC Shoah Foundation's commemoration of the liberation of Auschwitz, IWitness has just published three new Information Quest activities featuring child survivors of Auschwitz-Birkenau—Paula Lebovics, Eva Slonim, and Eva Kor.

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.

As a clinical psychologist and psychoanalyst, Sarah Sternklar, PhD, recognizes the powerful healing effects of words - how important and therapeutic it can be for people to tell their story. "This is a wonderful benefit for the survivors."

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 Institute mourns the passing of members of our community in 2022, including survivors who have given testimony, Joe Adamson, Helen Fagin, Sigmund Burke, Vera Gissing, Gerda Weissmann Klein, Bill Harvey, Max Glauben, Max Eisen, Phillip Maisel, Edward Mosberg, Judah Samet and Robert Clary.

Charlotte is among 20 student leaders from 14 university campuses from around the country who are convening at USC Shoah Foundation on Friday for the second-annual Intercollegiate Diversity Congress.

USC Shoah Foundation and the Museum of Jewish Heritage are joining forces on July 12 to host the official New York City premiere of My Name Is Sara, a feature film based on the true story of a young girl’s survival during the Holocaust while hiding in plain sight in the Ukrainian countryside. Produced in association with USC Shoah Foundation, the film was an Official Selection at over 50 festivals internationally, taking home five Best Feature Awards. Strand Releasing will bring the movie to New York theatres on July 13, 2022 and nationwide beginning July 22, 2022.

As the first anniversary of my life-changing trip to Poland is upon me, I take time to reflect on the impact that trip has made on me both personally and professionally.  I have learned so much from my experiences as a teacher in USC Shoah Foundation’s and Discovery Education’s Auschwitz: The Past is Present program.

Check out our year in review of the Institute's work in 2018, including stories about our new collection of testimonies from survivors of anti-Rohingya violence and the work we have done with the United Nations.

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 Aladdin Project, founded by Anne-Marie Revcolevschi, uses the power of words to create bonds between Jewish and Muslim worlds. This article first appeared in the Spring 2014 issue of PastForward.

USC Shoah Foundation is saddened to learn of the untimely passing of Dmytro Groisman, Ukranian human rights activist and USC Shoah Foundation interviewer. Groisman died Monday of a heart attack after a long illness, according to his colleague Maksym Butkevych. He was 41.

Jennifer Goss designed the new IWitness Information Quest activity about Kristallnacht to teach students about the complexities of one of the most important turning points of the Holocaust.

The new multimedia Ukrainian teacher’s guide Where Do Human Rights Begin: Lessons of History and Contemporary Approaches is now available as an online resource on the USC Shoah Foundation website.

If you’ve ever liked a Facebook post or replied to a tweet from the USC Shoah Foundation, you’ve met Deanna Pitre – at least virtually.

Growing up, David Cook heard tales of his grandfather’s time in the service during World War II ­-- particularly how he had helped liberate Buchenwald, a Nazi concentration camp in Germany.Though his grandfather passed away in 2001, this past semester, Cook had the opportunity to dive deeper into his story and World War II in his “History of the Holocaust” course taught by Professor Adam R. Seipp, USC Shoah Foundation’s first-ever Texas A&M Teaching Fellow.

The USC Dornsife Center for Advanced Genocide Research mourns the death of Holocaust survivor Zenon Neumark, who was a close friend of the Center and passed away on March 27, 2023 at the age of 98 years old.

When Zuzanna Surowy needed to make herself cry as the lead actress in the Holocaust-era feature film My Name Is Sara, she followed the advice of her co-star to “put a demon inside of her” – to imagine something so tragic it would bring tears to her eyes. It was much harder for Surowy, then 15, to follow the second half of that directive: to leave the demon on the set.

Professor Roy Schwartzman is proof that you don’t need to be a historian to make full use of the Visual History Archive in teaching and research.

Dimensions in Testimony highlights “Speaking Memories,” an exhibit by the organization Jewish Culture in Sweden featuring the voices and stories of Holocaust survivors. The Swedish History Museum also launched access to the 55,000 testimonies in the Institute’s Visual History Archive.

Wonder Woman star Gal Gadot opened her Los Angeles home to friends and family earlier this week to commemorate Yom HaShoah by hosting an intimate conversation with Holocaust survivor Celina Biniaz, the youngest female on Oskar Schindler’s famed list.

This lecture will discuss how the East Galician town of Buczacz was transformed from a site of coexistence, where Poles, Ukrainians, and Jews had lived side-by-side for centuries, into a site of genocide. Between 1941, when the Germans conquered the region, and 1944, when the Soviets liberated it, the entire Jewish population of Buczacz was murdered by the Nazis, with ample help from local Ukrainians, who then also ethnically cleansed the region of the Polish population. What were the reasons for this instance of communal violence, what were its dynamics, and why has it been erased from the local memory?

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.