Yehuda Bauer and Father Patrick Desbois visit the Institute

Last week, in commemoration of Yom Hashoah, the Institute enjoyed visits with renowned historian, Yehuda Bauer, and Father Patrick Desbois. Staff and colleagues at USC were left with profound impressions reflecting on the themes that shape this field relating to testimony, genocide, and social change.

As the Institute's scholar-in-residence, Professor Bauer delivered the inaugural Yom Hashoah Lecture on Monday, April 16, exploring the roots of genocide as well as realistic ways that societies can work, in stages, to combat these natural forces.

For the Institute's Yom HaShoah Commemoration Event on Thursday, April 19, Father Patrick Desbois, a Catholic priest and author of The Holocaust by Bullets, gave a keynote address discussing his field research on identifying sites of mass executions in Ukraine. Students, community members, faculty, and staff gathered for a moving evening, which also included readings by USC students, live music, a candle lighting, and prayer. The event was cosponsored by USC Hillel, Chabad at USC, the Casden Institute, the Louchheim School for Judaic Studies, the Office of Religious Life, and the Shoah Foundation Institute Student Association.