Learning from eyewitnesses of some of history’s darkest moments, educators strive to teach the power of decency and respect.

USC Shoah Foundation Executive Director Stephen Smith gave the keynote address at a conference with Holocaust educators located at the site of the Warsaw Ghetto. In the U.K, he attended events celebrating the launch of the Visual History Archive at the University of Oxford. USC Shoah Foundation Director of Global Outreach Karen Jungblut was also in Poland and then attended an event in Hungary to celebrate the launch of the Visual History Archive at 40 Hungarian institutions.

Our thoughts are with the families and community of those who were murdered at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh -- the most deadly antisemitic attack in U.S. history. We have curated a handful of resources to help educators engage students in meaningful dialogue.

The USC Shoah Foundation Center for Advanced Genocide Research invites research proposals from advanced-standing Ph.D. candidates for its 2019-2020 research fellowships. Each fellowship provides $4,000 support and will be awarded to an outstanding advanced- standing Ph.D. candidate from any discipline for dissertation research focused on testimony from the USC Shoah Foundation Visual History Archive and other USC resources.

Geoffrey Robinson (University of California, Los Angeles)
“The Killing Season: A History of the Indonesian Massacres, 1965-66”
October 4, 2018

Kimberly Cheng (PhD candidate in Hebrew & Judaic Studies and History, New York University)
2018-2019 Breslauer, Rutman & Anderson Research Fellow
“American Dreams: Jewish Refugees and Chinese Locals in Post-World War II Shanghai”
September 27, 2018

The history of antisemitism is strewn with the corpses of Jews who could not get out of the way when words turned to violence. The slaying of innocent Jewish lives by Pittsburgh gunman Robert Bowers, who this weekend turned his rhetoric about killing Jews into the actual killing of Jewish people, is the latest example. We need laws to allow intervention much earlier, or this will not be the last time we see Jewish people die in America because they are Jews.

BY STEPHEN SMITH. Anita Lasker-Wallfisch, a survivor of the Auschwitz-Birkenau Nazi death camp in Poland, is the first person I have spoken to since the mass shooting which left eleven dead at the Tree of Life synagogue. She does not waste time greeting me in the doorway of her home in London. “So what are we going to do Stephen? We are not making progress!”

Our hearts ache and our minds reel. Innocent lives have been lost at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh where a celebration of life was taking place. Now is a time to mourn those who have been wrenched away from their families at a time that should have been filled with joy. It’s a time to grieve for their families and friends who will forever struggle to understand what happened.

In this activity, students examine stories that have the power to strengthen our human connection or create deep divides leading to hate, intolerance and violence.