USC Shoah Foundation

USC Shoah Foundation Do you know a Holocaust survivor with an experience to share? IWitness is the Institute’s signature educational website for teachers and their students.
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USC Shoah Foundation – The Institute for Visual History and Education is dedicated to making audio-visual interviews with survivors and witnesses of the Holocaust and other genocides a compelling voice for education and action. The Institute currently has more than 55,000 video testimonies, each one a unique source of insight and knowledge that offers powerful stories from history that demand to be

explored and shared. The testimonies are preserved in the Visual History Archive, one of the largest digital collections of its kind in the world. They average a little over two hours each in length and were conducted in 62 countries and 41 languages. The vast majority of the testimonies contain a complete personal history of life before, during, and after the interviewee’s firsthand experience with genocide. The Visual History Archive is digitized, fully searchable via indexed keywords, and hyperlinked to the minute. With more than 115,000 hours of testimony stored in the Archive, indexing technology is essential for enabling users to pinpoint topics of interest. Indexing allows students, teachers, professors, researchers and others around the world to retrieve entire testimonies or search for specific sections within testimonies through a set of more than 64,800 keywords and phrases, 1.86 million names, and 718,000 images. Using testimony from the Visual History Archive, the Institute has developed innovative learning tools geared toward middle and high school students and teacher training programs that optimize the use of testimony in diverse educational settings worldwide – providing an experience that takes students beyond textbooks for more impactful learning. The free site has been used by students and educators in all 50 states and over 80 countries including Poland, Czech Republic, Ukraine, Hungary, Australia and France. Stored on the IWitness platform are 2,224 full-length testimonies from the Visual History Archive. The platform’s built-in learning activities are designed around short, curated clips. IWitness learning activities enhance existing curriculum across many subject areas including social studies, English Language Arts, government, foreign language, world history, American history, and character education. The Center for Advanced Genocide Research is the research and scholarship unit of the Institute. Founded in 2014, the Center is dedicated to advancing new areas of interdisciplinary research on the Holocaust and genocide, specifically discussing the origins of genocide and how to intervene in the cycle that leads to mass violence. The Center holds international conferences and workshops and hosts fellows and scholars in residence to conduct research using the vast resources available at the University of Southern California. It distinguishes itself by focusing on interdisciplinary study organized around three themes to advance the analysis of genocide and systematic mass violence on an international scale.

06/11/2026

“Sometimes you have to go back to move forward.”

Join us in Los Angeles on June 22 for the world premiere of “My Name is Gitta,” a brand-new documentary about a Holocaust survivor’s journey to uncover her past.

Learn more about the screening: https://danceswithfilms.ticketspice.com/dwfla-my-name-is-gitta

About the film:
Gitta is a vivacious nonagenarian holocaust survivor who has long ago processed and overcome her childhood trauma, and for decades has been telling her story of recovery and forgiveness at schools. But as she retraces her steps across Europe and reconnects with families and organizations that saved her life, she finds there is always more to uncover.

06/10/2026

During a period of forced labor in Capljina (Bosnia and Herzegovina, Yugoslavia) Holocaust survivor Marion Horn remembers a small act of humanity by an Italian soldier.

Marion’s testimony was recorded by the USC Shoah Foundation in 1995.

06/10/2026

This , we’re spotlighting LGBTQIA+ survivors and witnesses from our Archive, who share their experiences of survival, resistance, rescue, and loss.

Holocaust survivor Gad Beck describes the moment he came out as gay to his family.

Read more about Gad at the link in our bio.

06/06/2026

in 1944, more than 150,000 Allied troops (primarily American, British, and Canadian) came ashore on the beaches of Normandy, France, as part of Operation Overlord, one of the most important Allied military operations of WWII.

WWII veteran and liberator Joseph Abrahams recalls the day he and his unit stepped onto the beaches of Normandy on . Joseph was a member of the Royal Army Medical Corps and he worked at a field dressing station, tending to immediate injuries before sending soldiers to the hospital.

We mourn the loss of Barbara Byer, USC Shoah Foundation interviewer who conducted more than 100 interviews from 1996-202...
06/05/2026

We mourn the loss of Barbara Byer, USC Shoah Foundation interviewer who conducted more than 100 interviews from 1996-2024. She passed away in May at the age of 87.

Barbara was an active interviewer for the USC Shoah Foundation from 1996 until 2001, completing 88 interviews in Delaware, Maryland, New Jersey, New York, and Pennsylvania.

From 2008 to 2009, she completed 5 interviews for the Florida Holocaust Documentation and Education Center; these testimonies are now held in the USC Shoah Foundation Archive. She returned to conduct 20 more interviews in the past three years for our new Holocaust survivor testimony collection.

We are deeply grateful for Barbara’s commitment to preservation and for her lasting contributions to the USC Shoah Foundation.

May her memory be a blessing.

06/05/2026

June 4 is , an opportunity to showcase the bravery and resilience of the 50,000+ Holocaust survivors in our Archive.

In his testimony, recorded in 1997, Holocaust survivor Jack Wysoki speaks about the cycle of hate and the decision he made to break it.

Jack was born in Poland in 1926. He was captured by the N***s at age 14 and survived 22 concentration camps. At the end of the war, he was the sole survivor of his family.

After the war, Jack immigrated to the U.S. and became a notable businessman in San Antonio, Texas. He spoke at schools and community organizations about his experiences until his death in 2002.

06/04/2026

Dr. Mara Lee Grayson explains that proximity to whiteness and privilege can often perpetuate antisemitic tropes and ideas.

In the first episode of the 2026 Daniel & Marisa Klass USC Shoah Foundation , host Dr. Brian Hughes speaks with Hillel International’s Dr. Mara Lee Grayson on the “myth of Jewish whiteness” and how it affects academic and cultural spaces.

Watch the full episode on our YouTube channel: https://youtu.be/a0SwWGh4jQI?si=R5saJjWYp58x_0Pi

06/02/2026

This , we’re spotlighting LGBTQIA+ survivors and witnesses in our Archive, who share their experiences of survival, resistance, rescue, and loss.

In his testimony, recorded with the Holocaust Documentation & Education Center in 2011, Holocaust survivor Mark Burin speaks about his gay identity and his hopes for the future.

05/29/2026

In the first episode of the 2026 Daniel & Marisa Klass USC Shoah Foundation , host Dr. Brian Hughes speaks with Hillel International’s Dr. Mara Lee Grayson on the “myth of Jewish whiteness” and how it affects academic and cultural spaces.

In this clip, Dr. Grayson breaks down the joke of “two Jews, three opinions” and how it connects to debate, interpretation, and knowledge-sharing in Jewish culture.

Watch the full episode on our YouTube channel: https://ow.ly/n2KN50Z5nE4

05/27/2026

We mourn the loss of Daisy Miller, Holocaust survivor and longtime contributor to the USC Shoah Foundation. She passed away May 16 at the age of 87.

Daisy was among the first child survivors of the Holocaust to share her experiences in a group setting. She helped mobilize the formation of the World Federation of Jewish Child Survivors of the Holocaust & Descendants in 1985 and worked full time for the USC Shoah Foundation for 20 years in community outreach and fundraising.

In her USC Shoah Foundation testimony, recorded in 1999, Daisy reflects on the significance of seeing the Statue of Liberty on her journey to the U.S. after WWII.

May her memory be a blessing.

Read our full tribute to Daisy: https://ow.ly/jR2P50Z4IfC

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