Yehuda Bauer and Xu Xin have each led vastly different lives. But they both ended up as two of the world’s most respected and influential Holocaust scholars. For Bauer, the journey began in Czechoslovakia, where he was born in 1926. He and his family immigrated to Israel in 1939, just before World War II, and he graduated from Cardiff University in Wales after fighting in the 1948 Arab-Israeli War. He received his PhD in 1960 at Hebrew University in Jerusalem and began teaching at its Institute for Contemporary Jewry the following year.
/ Wednesday, November 6, 2013
Although the USC Shoah Foundation’s Visual History Archive is typically thought of as a way to preserve the stories of people who survived the Holocaust, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania has found a way to use the Archive to broaden the scope of memory to include not only survivors but also people who perished.
Paris, University of Pennsylvania, Rutman, map / Wednesday, May 16, 2018
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.
discovery, past is present, poland, a70, auschwitz / Wednesday, May 20, 2015
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.
Swedish History Museum, Speaking Memories, Dimensions in Testimony, DiT, Sidney Shachnow / Thursday, January 24, 2019
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.
/ Tuesday, September 16, 2014
When Barbara Winton visited USC Shoah Foundation last week, it wasn’t just the testimonies that talk about how her father saved hundreds of lives during the Holocaust that impressed her – it was how these testimonies are being used to educate the next generation.
Nicholas Winton / Friday, November 28, 2014
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.
Auschwitz70, past is present, Remembrance, op-eds / Tuesday, February 10, 2015
In the 1980s, a tiny woman in her 50s named Ruth Westheimer shocked and delighted the world with her blunt advice – delivered in a grandmotherly German accent – about sex. She became a media sensation and remains a household name as “Dr. Ruth.” Less known is her perilous journey to get there – a story that includes her survival of the Holocaust and immigration to British-controlled Mandatory Palestine, where she briefly became a sniper in a Jewish paramilitary force.
/ Wednesday, May 22, 2019
USC Shoah Foundation —The Institute for Visual History and Education (USC Shoah Foundation) and Fox Searchlight Pictures today announced a partnership to develop classroom curriculum tied to JOJO RABBIT, Taika Waititi’s heartfelt World War II anti-hate satire.
education / Thursday, December 19, 2019
We continue our 10-part Echoes and Reflections series with Lesson 7: Rescuers and Non-Jewish Resistance.
echoes and reflections, holocaust, rescuer, education, teaching / Friday, October 25, 2013
Two supporters of USC Shoah Foundation, Leonard Blavatnik and Trevor Pears, and Holocaust survivor Frank Lowy were awarded knighthoods in Queen Elizabeth II’s 2017 Birthday Honors List.
/ Monday, June 26, 2017
Sid Shachnow has two Silver Stars, three Bronze Stars and two Purple Hearts -- and that's just for his service in Vietnam, where he led his troops with courage and distinction. “There was no room for conscience,” he confides when discussing his 39 years of military service. “Once I was face to face with a Viet Cong. I had him in my sights as he ran toward me. He dropped his weapon and veered left. I did not pull the trigger. I still do not know if I did the right thing. My conscience got in the way.”
blog, Stephen Smith, Sid Shachnow, op-eds / Thursday, December 5, 2013
One hundred survivors from nations around the world to participate in official observance on January 27, 2015
a70 / Monday, September 15, 2014
Marianna Bergida grew up with little knowledge of most of her family – her mother, sister, cousins, grandparents, aunts and uncles were killed in Auschwitz when she was very young, and her father couldn’t speak about his own experiences during the Holocaust. Determined to not let other descendants of survivors lose their family history as she had, Bergida became an interviewer for the Shoah Foundation and ended up interviewing one of the real-life inspirations of Steven Spielberg’s film Schindler’s List.
/ Tuesday, October 7, 2014
Much of the content is geared toward addressing some of the many conflicts that came to light during and in the wake of the neo-Nazi, white supremacist rallies in Charlottesville, Virginia, on August 15, 2017, such as the importance of speaking out against hate, promoting tolerance and acceptance, and embracing diversity.
back to school, iwitness, iwitness university / Friday, August 18, 2017
The film was honored with the Creative Arts Award, VR – Documentary Jury Prize, at the awards ceremony held at the Warner Bros. Studio in Hollywood.
/ Tuesday, February 13, 2018
In honor of International Women's Day, USC Shoah Foundation is revisiting the story of the late Vera Laska, who joined the Czech resistance as a teenager and escorted dozens of Jews to safety in the snowy mountains of southern Slovakia.
/ Thursday, March 8, 2018
Thanks to a new partnership between the USC Shoah Foundation Center for Advanced Genocide Research and the Fortunoff Video Archive at Yale University, researchers at both institutions can now access each other's extensive Holocaust archives. Under the agreement, Yale University is now one of 95 access sites worldwide where the USC Shoah Foundation Visual History Archive is available. Yale University is the only institution in Connecticut where the interviews of the USC Shoah Foundation's Archive are accessible in their entirety. 
/ Wednesday, May 2, 2018
Howard Cwick was born in the Bronx, New York, on August 25, 1923, to Samuel and Sarah Cwick, both Polish immigrants. Howard had an older sister, Sylvia. TheCwick family spoke both English and Yiddish, kept a kosher home, and attended synagogue three times a week. Howard went to school at P.S. 100 in the Bronx beforegoing on to Brooklyn Technical High School. When he was seven years old, Howard received his first camera and became interested in photography.
male, liberator, soldier, Buchenwald, clip, unesco / Thursday, January 23, 2014
In time for February’s Olympic Games and Black History Month, two new activities have been published to IWitness, each dealing with racism in different contexts.
iwitness, racism, olympics, leon bass, Agnes Adachi, katsugo miho, margaret lambert / Thursday, February 20, 2014
Auschwitz: The Past is Present will support official activities of the 70th anniversary of the liberation of the German Nazi concentration and extermination camp
a70 / Wednesday, September 10, 2014
Watch Henry Rosmarin’s full testimony from the Visual History Archive as part of Comcast’s Days of Remembrance: PastFORWARD broadcast April 15-June 1, 2015. The sound of a harmonica usually brings to mind playfulness, joy, a sense of merriment. For Henry Rosmarin, it is also conjures the darkest chapter of his life, when his talent for music earned him favor with a Nazi commandant and kept him alive in a German concentration camp.
/ Friday, April 17, 2015
Capping off months of preparation, study and travel, the first group of USC Shoah Foundation Junior Interns returned to the Institute’s office in May to present their final thoughts on their participation in Auschwitz: The Past is Present program.
past is present, junior interns, Paula Lebovics, Lesly Culp / Monday, June 15, 2015
One of Poland's most beloved films is a unique example of music uniting both Jews and gentiles in the immediate post-war period that would soon become very difficult to find anywhere else.
cagr, music as resistance, warsaw / Friday, October 2, 2015
Howard Cwick was born in the Bronx, New York, on August 25, 1923, to Samuel and Sarah Cwick, both Polish immigrants. Howard had an older sister, Sylvia. TheCwick family spoke both English and Yiddish, kept a kosher home, and attended synagogue three times a week. Howard went to school at P.S. 100 in the Bronx beforegoing on to Brooklyn Technical High School. When he was seven years old, Howard received his first camera and became interested in photography.
male, liberator, soldier, Buchenwald, clip, unesco / Friday, May 27, 2016
Holocaust survivor Zenon Neumark and Guatemalan Genocide survivor Aracely Garrido are set to share their stories of survival and take questions from the audience.
genocide awareness month, defy, cagr / Tuesday, April 25, 2017
While students across America enjoy their summer vacation, the education department at USC Shoah Foundation is busily making major new features to its award-winning IWitness educational website for educators and their students that will be ready by the time school resumes in the fall.
iwitness / Friday, June 23, 2017
In this series, we take a closer look at the new features and resources coming to IWitness in time for the 2017-2018 school year.
iwitness, lala, iwitness360 / Friday, June 30, 2017

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