Historical memory is dangerous. In times of crisis, its demons emerge, ugly, toxic, and potentially lethal. We saw it in Donetsk last week. Jews emerging from synagogue during Passover found themselves the target of a despicable anti-Semitic attack – new crisis, old anti-Semitism, which this time accused the Jews of acts of collaboration as far back as 1941.

USC Shoah Foundation – The Institute for Visual History and Education was founded to capture the voices, emotions and faces of those who suffered, yet miraculously survived the most heinous crime ever committed against humanity by humanity. The idea was to record individual and collective memories that would be preserved in perpetuity as a seminal educational tool to inform current and future generations that incitement, hate and violence against a person or a group can ultimately lead to death, genocide and ultimately extermination.

In the Spring 2014 issue of PastForward, Professor Peter Kreko says education is necessary to combat Hungary’s troubling rise in antisemitism.

The fast pace of globalization with all of its benefits is also accelerating the viral spread of hatred. Where once regional enmities brewed for centuries with sporadic outbursts of warfare and imperial powers that waxed and waned, the truly global speed and scale of ideological hatred and international conflict was not possible until recently for many practical reasons.

There is talk of a “new anti-Semitism” sweeping the globe, but all I see is the same irrational hatred aimed at the same perplexed victims, who are once again left wondering what has energized such bile.

Focal Points will present USC Shoah Foundation and its Visual History Archive as a very relevant resource for those looking to find a frame of reference for the complex issues facing the world today.

A sea of faces dotted with “Nie Wieder!” banners wraps around the Brandenburg Gate in the heart of Germany's capital. As I join them on this Sunday afternoon, I cannot help but think of the crowds that once had gathered under the same grey skies hanging onto every hateful word of their chosen leader, Adolf Hitler.

The Visual History Archive enables its users to observe the history of political utilization of anti-Jewish prejudice since the beginning of the 20th century until the century's end. Teaching about the mechanisms of hatred and the real goals of the propagandists is of utmost importance especially in what used to be the Soviet Block, where the liberation from Nazi regime did not necessarily mean the end of anti-Jewish propaganda.

“My father is Jewish.  My mother is Jewish. And I am Jewish.”  Those were the words I kept repeating to myself as I boarded my flight from JFK to attend the 70th anniversary commemoration of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau.

Students are asked to engage with primary and secondary sources and construct a short video essay on the nature of contemporary anti-Semitism.

On Tuesday, March 10, 2015, the USC Center for Advanced Genocide Research hosted a lecture from Dr. Peter Hayes who spoke before a packed room at USC on the complex relationship between anti-Semitism and homophobia exerted in Nazi-occupied territories during World War II. The Theodore Zev Weiss Holocaust Educational Foundation Professor at Northwestern University specializes in 20th-century German History, writing extensively on German industry under the Nazis. Monday's lecture, however, focused on the evolution of his views on a comparison that he was previously reluctant to address.

What does it mean to live 70 years after the liberation of Auschwitz in a world in deep crisis? What does it mean with all we know about the damage that hatred causes – after all the pain we have gone through – that we are hurtling out of control into an inferno of rage that takes us right back to where we started?  Why are survivors of the Holocaust who walked out of the camps with at least the hope that their own suffering was not in vain, dying disappointed?

In light of the deplorable anti-Semitic incident at Ohio State University, and other campuses in recent months, USC Shoah Foundation is working to develop programs that will combat the troubling rise in anti-Semitism at colleges across the United States.

Survivors and witnesses of the 2015 synagogue attack in Copenhagen were interviewed for a new collection on contemporary anti-Semitism.

Echoes and Reflections, a Holocaust education partnership program of USC Shoah Foundation, Anti-Defamation League and Yad Vashem, published a new lesson dedicated to teaching students about antisemitism as it exists in the world today.

Though still in its planning stages, the program will aim to humanize the experience of antisemitism by sharing firsthand testimonies of people who have been affected by it.

Testimonies from the Visual History Archive’s newest collection have been added to IWitness in time for the upcoming school year along with a Mini Quest multimedia activity.

When Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas made the claim that Jews were targeted in the Holocaust for their “social function” in banking and not for their religion, he was not ranting from the podium or calling for death to the Jews. His approach was much more subtle, and therefore much more sinister.