Between 1938 and 1940 an estimated 17,000 mostly Austrian and German Jews traveled from Europe to Shanghai, many on luxury liners. They were escaping the upsurge of violent antisemitism in Europe and headed primarily to Shanghai, at the time one of the few places in the world without any immigration barriers.
The USC Dornsife Center for Advanced Genocide Research will cohost the 17th biennial Lessons & Legacies conference, which will take place at Claremont McKenna College and the University of Southern California from November 14 to November 17, 2024.
Organized and sponsored by the Holocaust Educational Foundation of Northwestern University (HEFNU) in partnership with host universities, the biennial Lessons & Legacies of the Holocaust Conference (popularly known as Lessons & Legacies) is the premier international scholarly gathering in Holocaust Studies.
USC Shoah Foundation is saddened by the passing of Alan Moskin, a Jewish veteran of the U.S. Armed Forces who, at the age of 18, helped liberate Gunskirchern, a subcamp of Mauthausen Concentration Camp, in May 1945. Later in life, Alan became a tireless advocate for Holocaust education and remembrance at schools, veterans’ groups, and in the media, speaking with candor about the horror he witnessed at the camp, the brutality of combat, and the bigotry he encountered in the U.S. Army.
Wonder Woman star Gal Gadot opened her Los Angeles home to friends and family earlier this week to commemorate Yom HaShoah by hosting an intimate conversation with Holocaust survivor Celina Biniaz, the youngest female on Oskar Schindler’s famed list.
As the Nazis assumed power in Germany in 1933, many artists and intellectuals opposed to the regime sought refuge in Latin America, particularly in Argentina, Brazil, and Mexico.
Joseph Greenblatt believes it was the antisemitic taunts he endured throughout his childhood in Warsaw that led him to a life of resistance. He was a key player in the 1943 Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, and then took on the Germans again, this time with the Polish Home Army in the Warsaw Uprising of 1944 — for which he later received a medal.
Greenblatt’s testimony, recorded in New York City in 1996, is contained in USC Shoah Foundation’s Visual History Archive.
In July 2020, Ben Ferencz, the last remaining Nuremberg prosecutor who died earlier this month, sat for a Dimensions in Testimony Education interview.
Below are excerpts from the three-day conversation, which was released today.
On his Place of Birth
Ben Ferencz, the last remaining prosecutor from the Nuremberg Trials who passed away in Florida earlier this month, gave countless interviews over the course of his illustrious career.
But surely none was longer, or more technically challenging, than the three-day testimony he gave to USC Shoah Foundation at the height of the Covid pandemic in July 2020.
The need for social distancing necessitated that filming be done remotely, with boxes of sophisticated equipment shipped to Ferencz’s modest Florida home.
USC Shoah Foundation and The Latin American Network for Education on the Shoah (Red LAES) today launch an educational partnership dedicated to the study, teaching, and dissemination of Spanish-language Holocaust testimonies in Latin America.
The new initiative, announced to coincide with Yom HaShoah, will undertake a range of innovative activities including the creation of a landing page on USC Shoah Foundation’s award-winning IWitness platform that will feature downloadable Spanish-language modules based on testimonies from the 56,000-strong Visual History Archive.