“I saw myself finished”: One Holocaust survivor’s first encounter with discrimination

Rachel Hanan was only a little girl at the time, but she will never forget the day in 1938 when newspapers in her home country of Italy published an ugly caricature intended to represent a Jewish face. Along with the illustration came the announcement of new legislation that applied only to Jewish citizens. Rachel’s life would never be the same.

The International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination was observed this week on March 21, marking the day in 1960 when police in South Africa killed 69 people at a nonviolent protest against the discrimination of apartheid. Watch Rachel remember her own encounter with discrimination, which she shared with the USC Shoah Foundation while living in neighboring Zimbabwe.