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.

For Women’s History Month, bring the unique voices of women who survived or stood up against some of the worst atrocities of the 20th century into your classroom. Facing History is partnering with USC Shoah Foundation to help educators access more than 1,500 video testimonies of survivors and witnesses to the Holocaust and other genocides using the Institute’s online learning tool, IWitness.

Co-sponsored by U.S. Mission to the UN in observance of International Day of Commemoration.

The portrait I have been working on of Dario isn’t complete yet, but what an honor it was to have met him and is now to engage with his testimony through the act of painting,” said David Kassan of hi

Over a dozen new multimedia activities in a variety of languages have been published on IWitness in time for the new school year.

Suzette Sheft first recognized the importance of recording family history when it was already too late. As a young child, the New York City student had regularly listened to her father’s stories, but when he died of pancreatic cancer when she was just 13, she realized she was unable to remember many of them. “When he was alive, he would tell me stories about his life while tucking me in each night, but in the months following his death, I found myself forgetting many of his recollections,” Suzette said.

I first learned about Helena Horowitz’s life history when I found her testimony as I searched through the archive in IWitness the Institute’s educational website featuring the testimonies of survivors and other witnesses to the Holocaust and other genocides.

We are very saddened at the USC Shoah Foundation to learn that our friend and Holocaust survivor Cantor Moshe Taube has passed away at age 93. Cantor Taube was among 1,200 Jews saved by Oskar Schindler during the Holocaust and led in the chanting of prayers at Congregation Beth Shalom in Pittsburgh.

von Frijtag questioned commonly-held perceptions about relations between Dutch Jews and gentiles during the Holocaust during her tenure as USC Shoah Foundation Center for Advanced Genocide Research’s 2017-2018 Center Fellow.

Leading up to the one-year anniversary of the deadly synagogue shooting in Pittsburgh, USC Shoah Foundation staff members trained educators in that metro area last week about how to use video testimonies of Holocaust witnesses as a tool to teach empathy, understanding and respect.

USC Shoah Foundation is sorry to learn of the passing of Aleksander Laks, the first Holocaust survivor to give his testimony to USC Shoah Foundation in Brazil and a special friend of the Institute. Laks passed away July 21 at age 88. Laks survived the Lodz Ghetto, Auschwitz and a death march as a teenager. He immigrated to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, and became a leader of the survivor community there as president of the Sherit Hapleita (Holocaust survivors’ organization).

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.

The University of Haifa has become the first university in Israel with access to the USC Shoah Foundation Institute’s Visual History Archive, a searchable repository of nearly 52,000 video interviews with Holocaust survivors and other witnesses.

Mireille Knoll managed to survive the Nazis during the Holocaust, but antisemitism is ancient and tenacious, and its tentacles finally caught up with her last week at her home in Paris. The 85-year-old Knoll was stabbed 11 times and burned after attackers – a neighbor and a homeless man – tried to set her apartment ablaze. The men, both in their 20s, were later arrested for a crime that is being investigated as an antisemitic attack. “She’s a Jew, she must have money,” said one attacker to the other, according to Gérard Collomb, the interior minister of France.

Anita Lasker-Wallfisch had a lucky moment while being processed at the Sauna in Auschwitz-Birkenau.  One of the girls processing her asked her what she did prior to landing in that place of unspeakable horror. “I played the cello,” she answered. That surreal conversation, not far from the gas chambers at Birkenau, would save her life.  As a member of the Auschwitz women's orchestra, playing the cello meant respite from heavy labor.  

A Modern Germany history course taught by Longwood University Professor Melissa Kravetz received an honorable mention for “Interesting Assignment” from the H-German online network for its IWitness-based final assignment.

Bartov centered his discussion on how the East Galician town of Buczacz was transformed from a site of coexistence – where Poles, Ukrainians and Jews had all lived side-by-side for centuries – into a site of genocide during World War II.

Jared McBride, the fellowship’s debut recipient, was chosen by a panel of USC researchers and professors for the originality of his proposal and its potential to advance genocide research.

Called “Cake For Winter,” the sketch by Amanda Andrei stems from a little-known fact that was also unknown to her: During World War II, thousands of Americans and Europeans were interned at Japanese-run concentration camps in the Philippines. It was selected to be performed by actors at the Midwest Dramatists Conference in Kansas.

The 45-minute live-streamed broadcast provided a personalized look at USC Shoah Foundation’s recent trip to Poland for the 70th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz.

Included within the course’s syllabus is the testimony of Holocaust survivor Eva Slonim, who was depicted in an iconic photo of a group of children standing behind the barbed wire at Auschwitz. Slonim composed a poem along with a group of other children while imprisoned in Auschwitz.

Fifteen hours of interviews related to a group of World War II-era diplomats who defied official policies to save hundreds of thousands of people from the Holocaust are to be integrated into the USC Shoah Foundation’s Visual History Archive.

We continue our 10-part Echoes and Reflections series with Lesson 7: Rescuers and Non-Jewish Resistance.

Last month, I had the amazing opportunity to travel to Warsaw and Krakow with USC Shoah Foundation’s mission to Poland for the Auschwitz: Past is Present program, commemorating the 70th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz. I had many unforgettable experiences throughout these four days traveling and meeting incredible people who are all interested in the work of USC Shoah Foundation and its mission of changing the world through testimony.