In October 1942, when deportations from the Warsaw ghetto paused, more than 20 youth groups and underground units coalesced into a united front. Vladka Meed channeled her despair at losing her family into fighting the Nazis.

A new documentary tells the story of Nicholas Winton, a British stockbroker who saved the lives of 669 Czechoslovakian children through the Kindertransport in 1939. Audiences in Los Angeles have a unique opportunity to see the film and meet Dave Lux, one of the children he saved, this Sunday.

The Jewish Museum in Prague has teamed with USC Shoah Foundation to provide a new testimony-based lesson plan for teachers in the Czech Republic. The lesson, “International Committee of the Red Cross and Terezín,” is about the Terezín ghetto and its use as a source of Nazi propaganda in a 1944 International Red Cross report.

The Jewish Museum in Prague recently debuted a new exhibit dedicated to the Nazi-produced films about the Terezin (Theresienstadt) concentration camp. The Visual History Archive is also a unique resource for Terezin remembrance.

USC Shoah Foundation is saddened by the passing of Alan Moskin, a Jewish veteran of the U.S. Armed Forces who, at the age of 18, helped liberate Gunskirchern, a subcamp of Mauthausen Concentration Camp, in May 1945. Later in life, Alan became a tireless advocate for Holocaust education and remembrance at schools, veterans’ groups, and in the media, speaking with candor about the horror he witnessed at the camp, the brutality of combat, and the bigotry he encountered in the U.S. Army. 

Jewish Holocaust Survivor Eva Abraham Podietz went to school as usual during the Kristallnacht Pogrom only to be sent right home again. On her way home, she encountered Nazi youths. Gender: FemaleDOB: May 22, 1927City of birth: HamburgCountry of birth: GermanyGhettos: NoFled Nazi Occupied Territory: Yes  

Professor Marion Kaplan, world-renowned scholar of German-Jewish history, will serve as the 2018-2019 Sara and Asa Shapiro Scholar in Residence at the USC Shoah Foundation Center for Advanced Genocide Research after being awarded its most esteemed fellowship. Professor Kaplan will deliver a public lecture and spend one week in residence at the Center this Spring.

Join Dr. Ruth Westheimer in conversation with Rabbi Peter J. Rubinstein after a screening of her animated short film "Ruth: A Little Girl's Big Journey," told in her own voice as she recounts how she survived the Holocaust as a young girl.

“This effort is especially important now when the world is experiencing a rise of violent antisemitism,” says Ilia Salita, CEO of Genesis Philanthropy Group. “We believe that Dimensions in Testimony will help counteract this and, more broadly, to disseminate knowledge about the tragedy of Soviet Jewry during the Shoah and the heroism of Jews who fought against the Nazis.”

For the sixth time, the Freie Universität Berlin will offer a free summer course for international and visiting scholars about USC Shoah Foundation’s Visual History Archive. This summer, the topic of the course is memories of the Nazis’ forced laborers.

A lecture by Teresa Walch (University of California, San Diego) 2016-2017 Robert J. Katz Research Fellow in Genocide Studies    

USC Shoah Foundation is partnering with the American Sephardi Federation and other organizations to undertake the Sephardi and Mizrahi Jewish Testimony Collection, a new initiative to document the Sephardi and Mizrahi experience during World War II and the Holocaust.

Harry Reicher, USC Shoah Foundation’s first-ever Rutman Teaching Fellow, wrapped up his four-day fellowship today with a talk that revealed how exceptionally valuable the Visual History Archive will become to his teaching.

In this blog, Center visiting scholar Robson Bello discusses his focus on play during his month of research. 

Samuel Clowes Huneke, author of the award-winning States of Liberation: Gay Men between Dictatorship and Democracy in Cold War Germany, uncovers stories about queer women during the Third Reich—their treatment in society and opportunities to resist.

USC Shoah Foundation Center for Advanced Genocide Research Director Wolf Gruner will present a paper at the fourth international interdisciplinary conference and workshop on The Future of Holocaust Testimonies in Akko, Israel on March 8, 2016.

About a month before the Nazis invaded Poland in 1939, sparking World War II, a desperate Jewish father in Germany penned a letter in broken English to a friend in England, Mrs. Wolf.  “I beg to inform you that we have got a refuse from the Aid Committee in London, owing to our high waiting number for America. … We are very discouraged by this answer and are now forced to get out our children as quick as possible.” Alfons Lasker, an attorney in Breslau, was on a mission to get his two daughters – Anita and Renate – out of Germany. He did not succeed.

Dario Gabbai, whose testimony is in the Visual History Archive, stopped by the USC Shoah Foundation last week to donate World War II era documents and artifacts for preservation and research.

The USC Dornsife Center for Advanced Genocide Research is delighted to announce the upcoming publication of the book Resisters: How Ordinary Jews Fought Persecution in Hitler's Germany. Authored by Center Founding Director Wolf Gruner, the book will be published by Yale University Press on August 29, 2023.

Constructing a Micro-history of the Holocaust in Western UkraineUSC Doheny Memorial Library, Room 240January 15, 2015, 4:00 pm 

In Nazi Germany, the medical field was part of the larger effort to dehumanize anyone who did not conform to the idea of a “healthy German nation.” Dr. Sabine Hildebrandt, who teaches the history of anatomy at Harvard Medical School, scrutinizes the biographies of medical professionals during the Nazi era and restores the histories of victims subjected to coercive medical experimentation both before and after death. Dr. Hildebrandt also considers the legacies of this history for the present, including how to ethically approach work with human remains in historical collections at universities, museums, and historical institutions.

Wendy Lower began conducting research at the Shoah Foundation nearly ten years ago. Now, she’s helping bring other scholars to USC for the first-ever USC Shoah Foundation international conference.

In her public lecture on Feb. 9 at USC, Walch outlined the process by which Jews in Berlin lost their rights, access to public spaces, ability to move freely, and finally their own homes, from 1933-38. Throughout her talk, Walch referred to the testimonies in the Visual History Archive.

Le sauvetage est un sujet fondamental pour comprendre la survie au cours du génocide et mesurer la difficulté des choix effectués par les individus dans des circonstances extrêmes. Bien que de nombreuses histoires de survie pendant l’Holocauste soient dues à des circonstances inexpliquées ou inexplicables, il y a aussi des traces multiples d’aides individuelle ou collective et de sauvetage qui permirent à des milliers de Juifs de survivre.

USC Shoah Foundation’s Middle East and North Africa (MENA) Collection will gain at least five more testimonies this spring when Project Director Jacqueline Semha Gmach travels to Paris for four months.

It’s been 80 years since Kristallnacht, a pogrom organized by Nazis against Jews in Germany and Austria, but as we’ve seen in recent weeks, the threat of antisemitic violence remains a horrifying possibility. Access educational resources that draw from the Institute's Visual History Archive.

The USC Shoah Foundation Center for Advanced Genocide Research and the USC Casden Institute for the Study of the Jewish Role in American Life invite proposals for their 2018 International Conference “New Perspectives on Kristallnacht: After 80 Years, the Nazi Pogrom in Global Comparison”.

In this lecture, Professor Peter Hayes detailed how and why the Nazi regime managed to kill an unprecedented number of people with ferocious speed, yet without applying significant quantities of German personnel or resources.

The future of Polish-Israeli relations can be driven by compassion and forgiveness, or a retreat behind walls of fossilized antisemitism, essentialist prejudice, nationalistic egotism, and fear.

USC Shoah Foundation Center for Advanced Genocide Research and the USC Casden Institute for the Study of the Jewish Role in American Life invite proposals for their 2018 International Conference.