This Thursday, Jan. 27, the world will mark the 77th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau, a Nazi concentration camp. Since 2005, the United Nations General Assembly has designated Jan. 27 an annual day of commemoration to honor the 6 million Jewish victims of the Holocaust and others who died at the hands of the Nazi regime and its allies.
This year’s International Holocaust Remembrance Day comes just two weeks after Jewish worshippers were taken hostage at a synagogue in Colleyville, Texas. Last fall, the FBI reported the highest number of hate crimes in twelve years. Jews were targets in more than half of religious bias crimes in the U.S. in 2020, the last year for which FBI data is available.
USC experts are available to discuss the Holocaust commemoration in historic and contemporary contexts.
Contact: Ron Mackovich, ronald.mackovich@usc.edu or (213) 810-8583
How holocaust survivors teach us to counter hate
“In a society that is increasingly divided, where siloed views can quickly escalate to violence, testimony is a transformative reminder of the power of listening. We are quite literally hard wired to experience others’ stories as our own. We know from years of evaluation and research that listening to survivors and witnesses is one of the most effective ways to teach the Holocaust and counter hate. At this critical moment, as the Holocaust survivor population is dwindling quickly, and fewer are able to share their stories, it’s crucial to record as many as we can so they can be secured and preserved to educate future generations.”
Kori Street is the Finci-Viterbi interim executive director of USC Shoah Foundation. Its Visual History Archive preserves more than 55,000 accounts from Holocaust and genocide survivors and witnesses.
Contact: kestreet@usc.edu
Technology’s role in Holocaust education
“Watching and listening to the testimonies of Holocaust survivors can be engaging, educational and compelling. However, this is still primarily a passive experience, where we are like passengers in the backseat along for the ride.
“On the other hand, Dimensions in Testimony, like talking directly with a survivor, is a much more active and interactive experience, allowing the visitor to sit in the driver’s seat and ask their own questions. The visitor must put in effort to understand what is said, think about the implications and come up with their own questions of what more they’d like to know. That can lead to the visitor being more invested in interpreting the answers to their own questions. We’ve seen visitors from young adults to seasoned journalists tear up with empathy for the survivors, even after asking them only a few questions.”
David Traum is is one of the project leaders who helped create the interactive biographies. He is Director for Natural Language Research at the USC Institute for Creative Technology and a research professor with the USC Viterbi School of Engineering.
Contact: traum@ict.usc.edu
The eyes of history on current events
“Part of the purpose of this day is to think about the actions that one can take to prevent genocide, and how to intercede in a timely way. In 1936 there was a threat to boycott the Berlin Olympic games. The Germans lifted their restrictions on the Jews and allowed them to go back to the cinema and things that just normal people would do for about a 12-week period over the summer. And then, once the world’s attention went away again, all the restrictions came straight back. It was a rare moment of reprieve. Had the world kept up its pressure maybe history could have been altered.
“A boycott against the Beijing games has been called for because of what’s happening to the Uighur Muslims. While events might highlight something that needs attention, what you do during a sporting event has never changed the way a country deals with domestic policy. The more important issue is how you develop a relationship with that entity or government to try and enhance their domestic policy for the better.”
Stephen Smith is the USC Shoah Foundation’s Executive Director Emeritus and USC visiting professor of religion.
Contact: smithsd@usc.edu
The Holocaust beyond Europe
“It’s only recently that scholars are starting to examine the extent to which the Holocaust was a global event. At the beginning of the war, North Africa was ruled entirely by German allies.  Libya was colonized by Italy. After its defeat in 1940, France became a German ally; the Vichy regime implemented strong anti-Jewish laws not only in France, but also in French-ruled territories in North Africa—including Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia. Jews in all three countries were expelled from French schools and limits were placed on their professional possibilities. In Algeria, Jews lost their French citizenship.
“The Vichy regime created a network of forced labor camps across North Africa. Many European Jews who had escaped to that region were captured and sent to those camps. Although these were not death camps per se, the conditions were extreme and many died of disease and exposure.
“While Jews in North Africa did not suffer the horrifying fate of their coreligionists in Europe, we are only beginning to understand the impact of the Holocaust on Jews and Muslims in North Africa and the Middle East.”
Jessica Marglin is the Ruth Ziegler Early Career Chair in Jewish Studies and associate professor of religion, law and history with the USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences.
Contact: marglin@usc.edu
Imagery and the ultimate violation of human rights
“If you teach human rights, the Holocaust is where you start. It’s the paradigm of what constitutes a violation of human rights. People were so shocked by its atrocities that the world wanted to create standards to prevent this from ever happening again. There are always images that accompany these discussions, whether it’s in teaching a class or in documentaries, there are always images of people in the camps. The impetus for disseminating these images is to try to get people angry or disgusted or to elicit some sort of emotional response so they’ll speak out or be mobilized to act.”
Alison Dundes Renteln is professor of political science, anthropology, public policy and law at the USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences.
Contact: arenteln@usc.edu
Holocaust history seen through an artist’s eyes
“It’s a pivotal moment in the 20th century, just understanding that massacre and the reasons behind it, the profound devastation, the profound loss. To be a 20th century artist, especially a Jewish one, and not deal with it or think about it, is kind of inconceivable. Art conveys meaningful messages about the human experience.”
Ruth Weisberg is professor of fine arts with the USC Roski School of Art and Design. Her creations focus on the transport of Jewish children to places of refuge during the Holocaust, known as the Kindertrasport.
Contact: reweisb@usc.edu
