Introducing our Blog

Welcome to Through Testimony, the official blog of USC Shoah Foundation – The Institute for Visual History and Education.

With Through Testimony, our staff, led by executive director Stephen Smith, will be posting their thoughts and ideas that highlight and supplement the 52,000 testimonies in the Institute’s Visual History Archive.

By focusing on current issues, as well as timeless themes, Through Testimony will help readers connect with the people who gave witness to some of the worst tragedies in history. Their memories give more power to events than our words could ever do. By coming face to face with testimony, people learn in a way that is personal, develop insight into themselves and gain the conviction to become active participants in civil society.

Members of our staff regularly travel around the world to further our work to provide transformative learning tools and educator- profession development with such programs as Teaching with Testimony, IWitness and Echoes & Reflections; expand our Visual History Archive to include testimonies from other genocides and share testimonies through new access sites. Through this blog our staff will connect you with their passion and convey their useful and interesting points of view.

So whether we are teaching the world through testimony, building peace through testimony, helping students develop voice through testimony or exploring the depth of testimony, the survivors and witnesses help us all to develop the insight and conviction to make a difference.

We hope that our contributors’ passionate, intelligent and engaging stories will help us all get there.