Claire Denault’s Southern California private high school had a problem with classism. So she decided to approach the issue in a way she knew would resonate with her peers: through story. As the student government leader who facilitated a weekly school-wide forum, she invited students to anonymously submit testimonies and personal accounts about how they had been disenfranchised or marginalized because of their socioeconomic status. Claire and other students read those narratives at town hall, and intense dialogue followed—that day and for weeks after.

On January 25, 2019, the fifth- and sixth-graders of a school in Cottbus, Germany honored all those affected during the Holocaust by unveiling a Butterfly Project memorial to the 1.5 million children murdered during this dark moment in history. This first-ever initiative in Germany introduced a new, younger audience to real stories of local children.

A newly published article in the peer-reviewed journal Social Education focuses on the potential of virtual reality in the classroom, and highlights USC Shoah Foundation’s virtual reality film 'Lala.' The 6-minute film centers on Holocaust survivor Roman Kent, who shares the story of his time in Nazi-occupied Poland alongside his beloved dog Lala.

A few weeks ago, a student I was interviewing for a profile I was writing on him for USC Shoah Foundation’s website said something interesting: “Growing up Jewish, the Holocaust is pretty much always there.” I could identify. As someone who went to Hebrew school twice a week, every week, from the age of 5 to 13, the Holocaust was something I was always aware of. I was taught about it frequently, both in religious and regular school.

Earlier this year, thanks to a new collaboration with the Srebrenica Memorial Center, USC Shoah Foundation took possession of a pilot collection of 20 testimonies of survivors and witnesses of the 1995 genocide in Srebrenica, Bosnia-Herzegovina. The testimonies document the genocide of more than 8,000 Bosnian Muslim (Bosniak) men and boys and the deportation of over 25,000 women and children that occurred in parts of eastern Bosnia-Herzegovina during the 1992-1995 war.

As the world watches in horror as millions of Ukrainians resist, take shelter or flee from Russian attacks, news reports stir up connections to a haunting past. We scanned our Visual History Archive to bring just a few stories from these places to light. The words of survivors, as they often do, reach forward through time.

In some ways, the one minute we spend with Elsie Hagopian Taft – 56 seconds, to be precise – is a wrenching primer on the Armenian Genocide. It is a poignant and powerful evocation of an innermost ring of Dante’s inferno, and a courageous explanation of why the Armenian Genocide matters today.

Fresh off its world premiere at the Telluride Film Festival last week, the documentary Finding Oscar was screened at the opening night of USC Shoah Foundation Center for Advanced Genocide Research’s conference “A ‘Conflict?’ Genocide and Resistance in Guatemala.”

You never know what you are going to discover in the Visual History Archive. Each one of the 53,000 testimonies in the Archive tells a different story of life before, during and after the individual’s experience with genocide.

More than 18,000 students and 250 teachers from school districts across Georgia last week experienced famed pianist Mona Golabek's livestreamed performance adapted from her acclaimed book, The Children of Willesden Lane. Produced in an exciting new format by Discovery Education in partnership with USC Shoah Foundation, the special theatrical and musical Willesden READS event gave students and educators the opportunity to interact with Mona as she brought to life the inspiring story of her mother and Holocaust survivor, Lisa Jura. 

The USC Shoah Foundation organized an April 25 lecture by Marianne Hirsch, its 2013 Yom Hashoah scholar-in-residence, who discussed her work on postmemory: the relationship that children of Holocaust survivors have with the personal, collective and cultural trauma of their parents.

The USC Dornsife Center for Advanced Genocide Research and the USC Shoah Foundation present Annual Sara and Asa Shapiro Lecture by Prof. Sara R. Horowitz (Professor of Comparative Literature and Humanities, York University, Canada) 2020-2021 Sara and Asa Shapiro Scholar in Residence (Join us in person for this lecture or attend virtually on Zoom) 

On Thursday, Oct. 27th, I witnessed history in the making. Nanjing Massacre survivor Xia Shuqin flew from Nanjing, China to Los Angeles to record a 3-D audiovisual testimony in Mandarin for USC Shoah Foundation’s New Dimensions in Testimony. For those of you who watched USC Shoah Foundation’s Instagram story that day, I was the intern behind the camera.

As you prepare your lessons plans for this year’s school year explore seven reasons why you should teach with testimony.

Coinciding with Inauguration Day, USC Shoah Foundation debuts an initiative developed to quell some of the divides and intolerance exacerbated by the election. The 100 Days to Inspire Respect campaign starts today, its first week focusing on hate, and the power of storytelling and testimony in stopping it.

Join the Montreal Holocaust Museum, USC Shoah Foundation, and Paragraphe Bookstore for a special event with author Rachael Cerrotti about her latest book “We Share the Same Sky” based on her award-winning podcast.

As 2015 comes to an end our education team takes a look at the 10 IWitness activities most assigned by educators.

Rescue is a crucial topic in understanding genocide survival and appreciating the difficult choices that people make in extreme circumstances. Although many stories of survival during the Holocaust are due to unexplained and unexplainable circumstances, there are also numerous accounts of individual and group acts of aid and rescue that contributed to the survival of thousands of Jewish people.

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.

More than 30 hours of content will be available for free through Xfinity On Demand, Xfinity TV Go app and online in conjunction with the U.S. National Days of Remembrance.

“Research With Testimonies: Featuring the Center's 2020 Lev Student Research Fellows” Lucy Sun (USC undergraduate student, History major) and Rachel Zaretsky (MFA candidate in Art, USC Roski School of Art and Design) 2020 Beth and Arthur Lev Student Research Fellows April 14, 2021

In this event Hosted by USC Shoah Foundation, in partnership with Writer's Bloc and Holocaust Museum LA, Batalion unveils countless stories of ingenuity, ferocity, and daring by girls and young women who fought the Nazis in Hitler’s ghettos in Poland. They blew up trains. They smuggled food and guns. They distributed false papers. They built bombs from a recipe unearthed in an old Russian pamphlet. They bought munitions. They spied.

I participated in an event in April called Survivor Voices. We were six panelists from Bosnia, Rwanda, Cambodia, two Holocaust survivors and an Armenian-American priest.

Arye Ephrath was born in April 1942 in the basement of his home in Bardejov, where his mother was hiding to avoid deportation. He spent the first three years of his life in hiding, and Arye and his parents were reunited after the war. Here, he reflects on the millions of victims who cannot share their stories.

USC Shoah Foundation – the Institute for Visual History and Education (the Institute) announces a special education outreach effort to mark the theatrical release of the acclaimed documentary film No Place on Earth, a film directed by Janet Tobias, which chronicles the experiences of 38 men, women and children who survived the Holocaust in Ukraine by hiding in natural cave systems for 511 consecutive days, living underground longer than any human had ever done before.

1:00 PDT | 4:00 EDT | 6:00 AM AEST 9 July 1 Hour This webinar is developed for an educator, university, and community member audience. It is not intended for K-12 students.

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.

The designers at Olson, an advertising and digital agency in Minneapolis, typically spend their days creating ad campaigns for clients including McDonalds, Target and General Mills. But for the last six months, a team from Olson has undertaken a project of an entirely different sort.

The USC Shoah Foundation Institute participated in “Conflict Resolution and Peace Research: Cambodia,” a summer undergraduate course offered through the Problems Without Passports program, where students conducted their own interviews with survivors of Cambodian Genocide.