The Institute is sad to learn that world champion swimmer and Holocaust survivor Éva Székely passed away at 92.

USC Shoah Foundation joins the Hollywood community and people worldwide in mourning the loss of Kirk Douglas, who passed away earlier this week at age 103. Douglas was an acting legend and an icon of the Golden Age of moviemaking, but it was the zeal and empathy that he brought not only to his work as an artist but also to so many humanitarian causes that made him a close friend of USC Shoah Foundation.

Born June 21, 1923, in Olcsva, Hungary, Weiss and her family were sent to the Mátészalka ghetto. She was then deported to the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp before being liberated by Soviet armed forces.

We are saddened to hear of the recent passing of Selma Engel, who, after becoming one of the few people to escape Sobibor death camp in Poland during the Holocaust, immediately began telling the world what she saw. She was 96.

Judith Leiber, a Holocaust survivor whose talent for making whimsical handbags took both the fashion and art worlds by storm, died Sunday in her New York home.

USC Shoah Foundation is deeply saddened by the passing of Hannah Kent, who survived three concentration camps and a death march, but went on to live a full life filled with love, family and resolve. She was 88.

Born Hanka Szarkman on Oct. 9, 1929, in Lodz, Poland, Hannah Kent was the wife of Roman Kent, a Life Member of USC Shoah Foundation’s Board of Councilors and a leader in the Holocaust survivor movement.

Hannah and Roman Kent met in New York after World War II and married in 1957. They had two children, Jeffrey and Susan.