The statistics are rolling in: Thousands of rockets fired, thousands of homes destroyed, 65,000 reservists deployed, hundreds of Palestinian and tens of Israeli dead, miles of print, hours of commentary, two ceasefires. But for all our statistics, are we not missing one fundamental point? No one is suffering more at the hands of Hamas than the ordinary people of Gaza.
On July 16 -17, 1942, over 13,000 Jews from Paris and its suburbs were rounded up by French police in the early morning hours and forcefully taken from their homes to both the Vélodrome d’Hiver, a winter cycling stadium in Paris, and to the Drancy internment camp.
The 53,000 testimonies in the Visual History Archive from the USC Shoah Foundation tell a complete personal history of life before, during and after the interviewee’s firsthand experience with genocide.
These testimonies are an invaluable resource for humanity, as in addition to their experience through some of the darkest chapters of human history; the testimonies also recount happy memories of childhood and successes in life including careers, children and grandchildren.