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In January 2015, I had the incredible opportunity to travel to Poland with other students from across the country for USC Shoah Foundation’s and Discovery Education’s Auschwitz: Past is Present program. We toured various sites in Warsaw and Krakow, Poland, with teachers and our friend Paula Lebovics, a survivor of the Holocaust. Each point in the trip was remarkable and extremely inspiring. However, the visit to the Auschwitz-Birkeanu Memorial Museum impacted me the most.
Auschwitz70, reflection, op-eds / Monday, January 25, 2016
Much like testimony shows how regimes have constructed borders; testimony demonstrates how individuals can construct bridges to connect with people of different beliefs and identities.
testimony, Tolerance, Election 2016, op-eds / Monday, October 10, 2016
You never know what you will find in the Visual History Archive. You hear stories of survival, death, life, hope and even friendship amidst the chaos of genocide. Sidney Shafner and Marcel Levy have remained friends for over 70 years – since the liberation of the concentration camp Dachau.
testimony, friendship, Sidney Shafner, Marcel Levy, liberation, op-eds / Wednesday, May 18, 2016
Inspired by the United States’ 2016 presidential campaign, IWitness has just published a new activity that draws on current events to enhance students’ skills in leadership, media literacy and using their voices responsibly on social media.
IWitness activity, after school matters, chicago / Tuesday, November 1, 2016
In January 2015, I traveled to Poland for the Auschwitz: Past is Present professional development program, commemorating the 70th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz-Birkenau. This entire experience, was and continues to be a life changing event for me on every level personally, professionally, and academically.
Auschwitz70, reflection, op-eds / Tuesday, January 26, 2016
As the son of two survivors of the Shoah and the husband of a daughter of two survivors, identifying as the Next Generation has been the essence of who I am. It is the prism through which I see and evaluate all worldly events. It was particularly my father’s life that affected me the most. He truly was a “survivor." He survived the war running for his life through Russia, Siberian labor camps and other lands in Asia. He survived losing his parents, five of his sisters their husbands and children. He escaped from his hometown in the Russian sector to a displaced person camp in in the American sector. He survived as a refugee in Belgium and then as an immigrant in the United States. He survived the loss of his wife at a young age raising three children as a single parent in a foreign land.
yom hashoah, Holocaust Remembrance Day, Next Generation, beginswithme, op-eds / Thursday, May 5, 2016
This collection of photos offers a rare glimpse of an outdoor Jewish ghetto in the countryside – specifically in Kutno, Poland. The images depict a form of ghetto that was actually more common, but far less known, than the urban settings (i.e. Warsaw Ghetto) that are cemented in the public imagination.
cagr / Wednesday, August 24, 2016
The archive was taken in 56 countries, 21 of which were in Central and South American. Ana is just one of the 1,352 who chose Spanish as their language of choice, while another 560 chose to speak Portuguese.
op-eds / Tuesday, November 8, 2016
Alina Bothe, PhD, the 2015-2016 USC Shoah Foundation Teaching Fellow, gave a public lecture at the USC Shoah Foundation Center for Advanced Genocide Research focusing on the way users experience and relate to the testimonies in the USC Shoah Foundation Visual History Archive.
cagr / Thursday, March 31, 2016
Aristides de Sousa Mendes was a Portuguese diplomat stationed in Bordeaux in the late 1930s who issued tens of thousands of visas to Jewish families, in direct violation of anti-Jewish laws instituted by Portugal’s fascist government at the time. For this act of resistance, Sousa Mendes faced trials and conviction, leaving him to live out the rest of his life in poverty and disgrace, and his 15 children scattered all over Europe and the U.S.
aristides de sousa mendes, upstander, GAM, résistance, op-eds / Friday, August 5, 2016
The theme of this year’s broadcast is “The Will to Resist” and is live now through November 10, 2016.
comcast / Friday, September 30, 2016
June 20th is recognized by the United Nations as International Refugee Day to raise awareness of the plight of the refugees around the world. In the Visual History Archive, the testimonies of genocide survivors include their personal experiences as refugees. As of now, the world is facing the biggest refugee crisis since World War II. To shed light on the current and past refugee crisis explore 10 interesting facts about the refugee experience.
World Refugee Day, op-eds / Friday, June 17, 2016

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