Newest Issue of PastForward Shows How Testimony is Changing the World

The Spring 2014 edition of PastForward features articles from scholars around the world and a special photo shoot to commemorate USC Shoah Foundation’s 20th anniversary.

The annual digest of the USC Shoah Foundation, PastForward contains articles written by researchers, teachers, students and more who are interacting with the testimonies in the Visual History Archive, as well as letters from founder Steven Spielberg and Executive Director Stephen Smith.

In the Spring 2014 issue, titled “Changing the World Through Testimony,” contributors include Joshua Oppenheimer, director of the documentary The Act of Killing, Mukesh Kapila, human rights leader and scholar, and Stacie Chaiken, the international creative director of Kwibuka20 in Rwanda. The articles reveal the many ways testimony being used around the world, from combating anti-Semitism in Hungary to helping genocide survivors and their families heal.

Photographer David Strick also helped create the issue’s Special Feature. He photographed Spielberg with middle school- to college-age students who have worked with testimonies from the Visual History Archive – an homage to a photo Strick took 20 years ago of Spielberg with Holocaust survivors who had given testimony.

The articles will be posted on the USC Shoah Foundation website over the next few months. You can also download the entire issue here.