Rather than ameliorate a developing humanitarian nightmare, the Evian Conference that began on July 6, 1938 was a display of self-interest. Nearly every country – including the United States – refused to raise their refugee quotas as the onset of the Holocaust drew closer. Only the Dominican Republic offered to relax its restrictions.

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 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

USC Shoah Foundation with its partner the Schindler’s Ark Foundation has added a tour of Oskar Schindler’s former factory in what is now the Czech Republic to its mobile IWalk application, enabling smartphone users to explore the site where the German businessman sheltered more than 1,200 Jews during the Holocaust.

The USC Shoah Foundation-produced documentary will be available on all Showtime platforms; check your local listings for a complete schedule.

USC Shoah Foundation mourns the loss of the Holocaust survivor and recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom, who passed away on April 3, 2022. She was 97.

A three-day seminar will be held November 22-24 in Kyiv to train Ukrainian teachers of social sciences and humanities, university tutors of law and human rights activists on the use of a new multimedia teacher’s guide titled Where do Human Rights Begin: History and Contemporary Approaches.

The inaugural 2020-2021 Scholar Lab program focuses on the topic of antisemitism. A cohort of academics was invited to explore antisemitism from a wide range of disciplinary perspectives and to use the collaborative meetings to guide and hone their work. The results of their research, presented in both traditional and non-traditional formats, will be accessible to the public later this year.

Steven Spielberg, founder of USC Shoah Foundation and director and co-producer of the film, says there has never been a more important time for students to see the historical period drama. “Hate is less parenthetical today, and it’s more a headline," he told Lester Holt of NBC Nightly News in an interview about the rerelease.

The lesson reflects on the consequences of discrimination: questions of Jewish identity, reactions of majority population, and gestures of solidarity.

Professor Jan Grabowski, a distinguished scholar of the Holocaust in Poland will serve as the 2022-2023 Sara and Asa Shapiro Scholar in Residence at the USC Dornsife Center for Advanced Genocide Research and USC Shoah Foundation. He will deliver the Annual Sara and Asa Shapiro Lecture, entitled "Holocaust in Poland: New Research, New Findings", and spend a week in residence at the Center and USC Shoah Foundation in March 2023.

Professor Jan Grabowski, a distinguished scholar of the Holocaust in Poland will serve as the 2022-2023 Sara and Asa Shapiro Scholar in Residence at the USC Dornsife Center for Advanced Genocide Research and USC Shoah Foundation. He will deliver the Annual Sara and Asa Shapiro Lecture, entitled "Holocaust in Poland: New Research, New Findings", and spend a week in residence at the Center and USC Shoah Foundation in March 2023.