Seventeen countries, 28 states and 122 cities later, the USC Shoah Foundation 20th Anniversary Guest Book is officially closed.

Over the last several years, I’ve had the distinct privilege to work with the recorded materials collected by the late Dr. J Michael Hagopian. A survivor of the Armenian Genocide himself, Michael had the foresight to capture the voices of those who witnessed the atrocities first hand.  Later this month, the USC Shoah Foundation will make a group of 60 of these interviews available through the Visual History Archive, ensuring that these recollections will be preserved in perpetuity, for future generations.  Michael would have certainly been proud to witness this accomplishment.

The murder of extended families, the targeting of community leaders, the critical role of eyewitnesses--each of these factors surfaces in Haigas Bonapart’s interview. These tactics are all too familiar to those of us who study the crime of genocide and the strategies employed by its perpetrators. By destroying communal ties and eliminating those individuals who might rally a group in self-defense, civilians under systematic assault are made much more vulnerable to isolation and mass violence.

USC Shoah Foundation’s Karen Jungblut and Cecilia Chan spoke on a panel about the power of testimony at University of Pennsylvania’s Alumni Weekend last Friday.

USC Shoah Foundation launched its Armenian Genocide Collection in the Visual History Archive in April. Now, a new information Quest Activity about the Armenian Genocide is available for students and educators to view in IWitness.

Broken Silence, a “CINEMAX Reel Life” series of five documentary films by distinguished international directors, will debut on CINEMAX on five consecutive nights next April 15-19. This unique event is presented by Steven Spielberg and Survivors of the Shoah Visual History Foundation and produced by Academy Award Winning documentary filmmaker James Moll (the Oscar-winning HBO documentary “The Last Days”), and will debut in conjunction with Holocaust Remembrance Day, Yom Hashoah.

To meet growing demands for access to the world’s largest archive of genocide testimony, USC Shoah Foundation – The Institute for Visual History and Education is announcing its Visual History Archive Program, which will reimagine how users connect to the testimonies.

All testimonies from USC Shoah Foundation’s Armenian Genocide collection have been indexed and will be integrated into the Visual History Archive in the coming months.

Find out what new activities, testimonies and enhancements are coming to IWitness in time for the start of the 2016-2017 school year.

Los Angeles, May 25, 2017 – USC Shoah Foundation – The Institute for Visual History and Education has partnered with the Armenian General Benevolent Union (AGBU) to integrate all videos from the AGBU WebTalks series—addressing both the Armenian Genocide and Armenian identity—into USC Shoah Foundation’s award-winning IWitness educational website.

Continuing its partnership with USC Shoah Foundation, The Florida Holocaust Museum (FHM) education staff have authored an IWitness activity introducing students to the challenges faced by Holocaust refugees, titled “Walter Loebenburg: Refugee Experiences During the Holocaust.”

The release follows the recent completion of 489 interviews with the survivors of the Guatemala Genocide at the hands of the Guatemalan military in the early 1980s.

The Spring 2014 issue of PastForward includes an excerpt of director Joshua Oppenheimer’s talk, which he gave in Los Angeles on the eve of the Oscars, describing his own journey of discovery as he encountered perpetrators willing to describe, even boast about, their acts of killing.

Dr. Ugur Üngör began his lecture yesterday at The Forum in USC’s Tutor Campus Center by asking a question that has plagued genocide researchers for generations.

As a teacher at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, who survived the tragedy on Feb. 14, 2018, I have spent the past year grappling with this question.

Anna Lee, the 2019 Beth and Arthur Lev Student Research Fellow at the USC Shoah Foundation Center for Advanced Genocide Research, gave a public lecture about her research on survivor activism as a form of healing in the aftermath of mass executions during genocide and contemporary school mass shootings. During her one-month residency at the Center, Lee conducted comparative research on the topic by examining both survivor testimonies housed in the USC Shoah Foundation Visual History Archive and accounts of school shootings survivors found in media and other sources.

Kay Andrews, a lecturer at the Institute of Education’s Centre for Holocaust Education, University of London, discusses how testimony is bringing the authentic survivor voice to Holocaust education in the United Kingdom.

Exhibit focuses on the Cuban Jewish Communities origins and history.

USC Shoah Foundation has joined forces with La Fundación de Antropología Forense de Guatemala (FAFG), a Guatemalan forensics organization, to collect video testimonies of survivors and witnesses of the Guatemalan Genocide.

The elderly population is among the hardest hit by the COVID-19 pandemic, and the victims include a large and growing number of Holocaust survivors and World War II veterans.

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.

Los Angeles - July 28, 2015 - USC Shoah Foundation - The Institute for Visual History and Education has joined forces with La Fundación de Antropología Forense de Guatemala (FAFG), a Guatemalan forensics organization, to collect video testimonies of survivors and witnesses of the Guatemalan Genocide, which killed some 200,000 civilians in the early 1980s, mainly indigenous Mayans, at the hands of a military junta whose leader was convicted of genocide and war crimes in May 2013.

The film originally premiered at Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum on January 27, 2015, the commemoration ceremony for the 70th anniversary of the liberation of the camp.

The IWalk went along one of the busiest streets in Warsaw which used to be part of the Warsaw Ghetto.

Though still in its planning stages, the program will aim to humanize the experience of antisemitism by sharing firsthand testimonies of people who have been affected by it.

Teach for Ukraine – a two-year teaching program similar to Teach for America – began training its first cohort last week, and part of that training included a workshop on IWitness and constructivist learning theory.

IWitness has gathered a variety of multimedia resources to help teachers teach and students learn about the new film The Promise, a historical fiction film that conveys a multi-perspective history of the Armenian Genocide.

Over 85 members of the Glendale, Calif. community attended a presentation organized by the Glendale Public Library on Oct. 26 about the Visual History Archive’s Armenian Genocide testimony collection and educational resources on IWitness.

Braham was a professor of political science and an influential thinker about the Holocaust and its impact on his native Hungary. A Holocaust survivor himself, Braham was barred from attending school by the Hungarian government before the outbreak of World War II. He gave his testimony to the Institute and participated in the USC Shoah Foundation film “The Last Days."

USC Shoah Foundation is looking for 40 students across the country in 7th– 11th grades representative of diverse backgrounds and academic skills who are interested in participating in its highly competitive William P. Lauder Junior Internship Program. The program provides a dynamic and unique learning opportunity to engage with testimonies – personal stories – from survivors and witnesses of genocide to develop their own voice.