USC Shoah Foundation launched the first in a series of educational activities developed in partnership with the Armenian General Benevolent Union (AGBU). The series incorporates testimony of Armenian Genocide survivors and their descendants with supplementary videos from AGBU WebTalks, and is available to students through the Institute’s award-winning educational website, IWitness.

A public lecture by Philippe Sands (University College London) Introduction by Prof. Hannah Garry (Director of USC Gould International Human Rights Clinic)

Reflections on the recent conferences the USC Shoah Foundation hosted or participated in, and the ways in which these scholarly gatherings enrich the field of genocide studies and demonstrate the value of the Visual History Archive.

“Digital Approaches to Genocide Studies” was the first international conference bringing the fields of digital humanities and genocide studies together. Organized by the USC Shoah Foundation Center for Advanced Genocide Research and cosponsored by the USC Digital Humanities Program, the conference convened 23 scholars from all over the world — the United States, Germany, Poland, France, the United Kingdom, Australia, and Canada.

In this clip, Beatrice Muchman recalls her favorite holiday when she was a little girl in hiding in the Belgian countryside with a Christian woman who hid her and her cousin. At the time, Beatrice and her cousin had converted to Catholicism. She eventually returned to her Jewish faith particularly through the help of her husband's family.

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.

 联络人：Josh Grossberg 213-740-6065  josh.grossberg@usc.edu 即时发布   中国 南京 - 2017年12月13日 - 作为南京大屠杀80周年纪念活动的一部分，南加州大学犹太大屠杀基金会于国家公祭日当天在侵华日军南京大屠杀遇难同胞纪念馆揭幕首个汉语普通话“证言新维度”交互式幸存者证言。   这是 “证言新维度”项目在美国以外的首次永久性展示，以南京大屠杀幸存者夏淑琴老人为主角。她是本项目迄今为止唯一一位非纳粹犹太大屠杀幸存者的采访对象。 天府银行和天府集团为本次“证言新维度”项目的制作提供了慷慨捐赠。 本演示项目是重新布展的侵华日军南京大屠杀遇难同胞纪念馆核心展示区域的一部分。“证言新维度”运用突破性的自然语言分析软件，让观众得以与大屠杀幸存者的录制影像进行互动。通过复杂的算法，这些影像可以实时回答观众提问，让观众可以与幸存者进行身临其境的交流。

In this clip, Robert Waisman, a Jewish survivor of the Dachau concentration camp, and Leon Bass, the American soldier who helped liberate the camp each recall what they saw on April 11, 1945.

Kurt, an American soldier, and Gerda, a Holocaust survivor, recall how they met the day Kurt liberated her from a derelict factory where Nazi soldiers abandoned her and other women during a death march.

When Elizabeth Holtzman of New York became the youngest woman in American history elected to Congress at age 31, she hadn’t spent much time thinking about Nazi war criminals. But when a whistleblower in 1973 brought to her attention the fact that such perpetrators were living in the United States with full knowledge of the federal government, she decided to use the power of her office to do something about it.

In this clip from testimony recorded in Bangladesh in 2017, Anwar Sadek, a Rohingya refugee, refuses to stay silent about the Myanmar government's treatment of the Rohingya.

As we look ahead in 2018, we offer a few moments of joyful music from the Visual History Archive.

Barbara Reichmann survived the Holocaust by going into hiding and concealing her identity. In order to survive, she volunteered to work as a Polish forced laborer, which brought her eventually to Ulm, Germany. She was liberated by French armed forces. In Munich, she met her husband, Leon Reichmann, and had a daughter. They eventually emigrated to the United States.

Davina Pardo is a determined woman. For two years, the Emmy award-winning filmmaker had reached out to USC Shoah Foundation and Conscience Display, asking again and again for access to create a documentary about the New Dimensions in Testimony program. A native Canadian residing in Brooklyn, Pardo was no stranger to grappling with memories of mass murder. She had previously spent time in Rwanda filming a documentary about the 1994 genocide.

Division among people continues to be a root cause of conflict. Students need a relevant perspective to help them recognize how continued reinforcements of stereotypes, prejudices, and discrimination play a role in this division. This webinar will focus on ways to contextualize present day manifestations hate through IWitness resources. Register for the Webinar

Students need to think critically about the implication of bystanders' choices, the reasons behind those choices, and the reasons why they should have acted. We want to encourage our students to always do the right thing and stand up for those in need. To do this, they need to understand the consequences of bystander behavior. This webinar will focus on first-hand stories from victims to help students think critically about inaction and indifference.

Students are aware of injustices around them, especially in today's political climate. Providing them a way to contribute to the solution validates their social responsibility and activates their learning. With service learning and community service becoming essential parts of curricula we as educators can inspire our students to do good in the world. This webinar will focus on the IWitness Video Challenge, an activity that gets students working for positive change in their communities.

In a world filled with counter examples, students need our guidance to find real examples of responsible, empathetic behavior. Examining ways in which people care for others by highlighting individuals who had courage to take a stand against prejudice, discrimination, and hate will provide a new authentic perspective of good. Bringing in voices of those who have helped and been helped by others is a powerful way for students to be introduced to these role models.

To help students become active civil participants of society, they need to discover and define their voice. Cultivating communication skills and digital literacy are critical to supporting students as they attempt to magnify their voices in support of others. In this webinar, resources that cultivate these skills in students will be featured. Register for the Webinar

A love of old movies drew Shiraz Bhathena into the moving image archive field. As an archivist and post-production specialist at USC Shoah Foundation, he supervised the process of restoring the Institute's testimonies with video and audio problems. The herculean task is finally complete.

The testimony of Holocaust survivor Raphael Zimetbaum references Elise Meyer, the aunt of Washington Post publisher Katharine Graham, the real-life person portrayed by Meryl Streep in the film "The Post," by Steven Spielberg.

In this clip, Holocaust survivor Raphael Zimetbaum recounts how Brazilian ambassador Luis Martins de Souza Dantas granted him and his family diplomatic visas, allowing them to eventually escape to Brazil. The ambassador also happened to be married to Elise Meyer, sister of Washington Post owner Eugene Meyer, Katharine Graham's father.

Institute staff is attending this week’s World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, to demonstrate New Dimensions in Testimony, the Institute’s interactive biographies that enable people to have conversations with pre-recorded video images of Holocaust survivors and other witnesses to genocide.

Testimony brings to life why we join World Jewish Congress and communities everywhere for International Holocaust Remembrance Day and the #WeRemember campaign.

The world will observe International Holocaust Remembrance Day on Saturday, which is the 73rd anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz death camp. It’s a day of somber reflection, but also a time for education so the world can be better protected from the evils of the past. Among its many programs, USC Shoah Foundation offers IWitness, a free online platform that teachers and students can use to navigate this difficult subject. Among its nearly 200 activities, IWitness has many that focus on Auschwitz, liberation and other topics of relevance to the day’s message.

"Nothing compares to eyewitness accounts," said teacher Ivy Schamis of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. "The students get a better feel for the survivor or liberator when they hear their own words and see their body language. It is very inspiring."

The USC Shoah Foundation Center for Advanced Genocide Research invites research proposals from USC faculty members and graduate students for its Summer 2018 Research Fellowships.