What testimonies teach us: Reflections from 2019-2020 Shapiro Scholar Peter Hayes


I much enjoyed my stay at the USC Shoah Foundation Center for Advanced Genocide Research in early March, just before the pandemic turned all of our lives upside down. Meeting the wonderful members of the staff and seeing how much the operations of both the Foundation and the Center have grown since my last visit in 2014 were remarkable experiences.

Peter Hayes

“People were dying like flies”: A reflection on COVID-19 and epidemics during the Holocaust


Only a day after the University of Southern California announced that it would conduct a three-day test to move all classes online, which soon turned into a permanent arrangement until the end of Spring semester, my colleague and I gave our last in-person introduction to the USC Shoah Foundation Visual History Archive to a USC class. Perhaps serendipitously, one of the topics discussed in this class was physical health.

Badema Pitic

Marianne Hirsch and Leo Spitzer lecture about school photos in concentrationary sites


The USC Shoah Foundation Center for Advanced Genocide Research hosted professors Marianne Hirsch (Columbia University) and Leo Spitzer (Dartmouth College), who gave a lecture based on their recently published book School Photos in Liquid Time: Reframing Difference.

Badema Pitic

Volume of poetry inspired by testimony will be published in September 2020


From the Annals of Krakow, a sequence of poems by Piotr Florczyk that was inspired by testimonies from the USC Shoah Foundation Visual Archive, will be published in September 2020 by Lynx House Press, a press whose titles are distributed to the trade by University of Washington Press. 

USC Shoah Foundation

Ioanida Costache lectures about cultivation and transmission of Romani memories of the Holocaust through music


Ioanida Costache, the Center’s 2019-2020 Breslauer, Rutman, and Anderson Research Fellow, gave a public lecture about the monthlong research she conducted in the USC Shoah Foundation Visual History Archive during her residency at the USC Shoah Foundation Center for Advanced Genocide Research. This research is part of her ongoing dissertation project that examines how music helps facilitate the cultivation and transmission of Romani memories of the Holocaust.

Badema Pitic

Visual History Archive Webinar


Sunday, June 29, 2025 - 12:52 PM PDT

In this webinar, the USC Shoah Foundation Center for Advanced Genocide Research team will provide a deep dive into the USC Shoah Foundation Visual History Archive, including its history; methodologies of testimony collection, preservation, and indexing; current state of the archive and its collections; and how to use its search engines and interface for research and teaching. The participants will learn how to unlock the research potential of the archive and be able to ask questions and get assistance with effectively searching the archive.

Peter Hayes Named the 2019-2020 Shapiro Scholar in residence


Professor Peter Hayes, world-renowned scholar of the history of Nazi Germany and the Holocaust, will serve as the 2019-2020 Sara and Asa Shapiro Scholar in Residence at the USC Shoah Foundation Center for Advanced Genocide Research.
Martha Stroud
Martha Stroud manages the day-to-day operations of the USC Dornsife Center for Advanced Genocide Research, which advances innovative interdisciplinary research on the Holocaust and other genocides and promotes use of the Visual History Archive in research and teaching.