Videos by Topic
The 1936 Berlin Olympics
A collection of Jewish survivors and other eyewitnesses to the Holocaust describe watching the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin. In preparation for the start of the 1936 Olympics in Berlin, the Nazis in power decided to minimize the presence of anti-Semitism in the city.
Discrimination: Rita Feder remembers the 1936 Olympics
Language: English
Rita Feder was a young girl during the 1936 Olympics in Berlin and remembers how desperately she wanted to attend the games but was unable to because she was Jewish. Feder recalls how dangerous it was for Jews during that time even though there was an international audience in Berlin.
Discrimination: Rita Feder remembers the 1936 Olympics
Language: English
Rita Feder was a young girl during the 1936 Olympics in Berlin and remembers how desperately she wanted to attend the games but was unable to because she was Jewish. Feder recalls how dangerous it was for Jews during that time even though there was an international audience in Berlin.
Margaret Lambert on the 1936 Berlin Olympics
Language: English
Margaret Lambert recalls her experience as an athlete on the Olympic team in Nazi Germany in 1936. Lambert's testimony is featured in the IWitness Activity, 1936 Olympics: Race, Politics & Civil Rights.
Hugo Beckerman on the atmosphere in Berlin before the start of the 1936 Olympics
Language: English
In preparation for the start of the 1936 Olympics in Berlin, the Nazis in power decided to minimize the presence of anti-Semitism in the city. Hugo Beckerman recalls how he was able to identify the Jewish businesses that were still allowed to run at that time.
Agnes Adachi on the 1936 Berlin Olympic Games
Language: English
Agnes Adachi remembers attending the Olympic Games in Berlin 1936; and describes what it was like to watch Jesse Owens compete and win the gold medal. She recalls that the anti-Jewish restrictions and propaganda had been eased at the time because of the international presence in Germany.
Eric Frisch on the 1936 Olympics in Berlin
Language: English
Eric Frisch describes his experience as a runner in the first Olympic torch relay, which spanned from Greece to Germany, at the 1936 Olympics in Berlin. Frisch further recalls meeting Jesse Owens forty years after the games.
Ellen Brandt on the 1936 Olympics in Berlin
Language: English
Ellen Brandt recalls the efforts by the Nazis to hide any evidence of anti-Semitism from the press during the 1936 Olympics in Berlin and the intensified anti-Semitism that came after the games.
Gerda Frieberg on the 1936 Olympics in Berlin
Language: English
Gerda Frieberg describes her reactions to seeing Hitler during the festivities surrounding the 1936 Olympics in Berlin.
Endre Altmann on the 1936 Olympics in Berlin
Language: English
Endre Altmann recalls his experience as a member of the Romanian Olympic fencing team and explains his decision not to participate in the 1936 Olympics in Berlin.
Ellen Kilston on the 1936 Olympics in Berlin
Language: English
Ellen Kilston remembers the Nazis’ hiding of all anti-Semitic propaganda during the 1936 Olympics in Berlin. She further explains the role this deception played in shaping foreign perceptions of Jewish life under Hitler.
Diane Jacobs on the 1936 Olympics in Berlin
Language: English
Diane Jacobs remembers watching Jesse Owens accept his medals at the 1936 Olympics in Berlin and the admiration she felt for his refusing to salute the Nazi flag.
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A collection of Jewish survivors and other eyewitnesses to the Holocaust describe watching the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin. In preparation for the start of the 1936 Olympics in Berlin, the Nazis in power decided to minimize the presence of anti-Semitism in the city.
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June 20 is recognized by the United Nations as International Refugee Day to raise awareness of the plight of the refugees around the world. For World Refugee Day 2016 USC Shoah Foundation presents 24 stories of genocide survivors who recall their experiences as refugees in their testimonies preserved in the Visual History Archive. A clip of testimony every hour to inspire, inform and shed light on the impact of war, genocide and massacre forcing individuals from their homes.
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A collection of testimony clips from WWII liberators who served in the United States Armed Forces.
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From April to July 1994, one of the most brutal genocides in human history occurred in Rwanda. It claimed the lives of 800,000 men, women, and children, most of whom were of Tutsi descent. Kwibuka, the official anniversary of the Rwandan Tutsi Genocide, is observed every year on April 7. Explore this selection of testimony clips of survivors and eyewitnesses to the genocide from the Visual History Archive.
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At the end of each interview the Institute recorded for the Archive, the interviewer would ask the interviewee if he or she had a special message for future generations watching the interview. The survivors and other witnesses often spoken about such themes as forgiveness, the importance of individual action, and the need to teach children tolerance. Here are a few messages from the Institute's Archive.
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Several people responded to active discrimination by helping the victims in different ways. This is a collection of clips highlighting testimony from survivors and aid givers themselves. One question that sometimes emerges in these clips is "what made you stand up to discrimination and racial intolerance?"
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A series of clips from survivors speaking about their experiences with personal as well as institutional forms of discrimination. These clips include testimonies from the European Holocaust, the Armenian Genocide, and the Genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda collections.
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A collection of clips from the Institute Archive that focus on interviewees describing particular feelings and emotions they experienced, such as fear, gratitude, and attitudes about others.
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Possibly the most well-known example of these rescue operations involved individual British families agreeing to “host” children from Germany, Austria, and the Czech Republic through a program known as Kindertransport. Through this program, organized by Sir Nicholas Winton, an estimated 10,000 refugee children, most of them Jewish, were housed in the United Kingdom during the war. These children were able to avoid ghettoization and camp experiences; in many cases, they were the only members of their families to survive the Holocaust.
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To view the entire Armenian Genocide Testimony Collection, log into the Visual History Archive Online to explore the full-length eyewitness testimonies.
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On the occasion of the 70th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, listen to the testimonies of 70 Holocaust survivors, drawn from the Visual History Archive at USC Shoah Foundation, as they recall their personal experiences in the Nazi extermination camp.
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Clips of survivors recalling times in their lives during the Holocaust when they still managed to find love.
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The Kristallnacht Pogrom was an organized pogrom against Jews in Germany and Austria that occurred on November 9–10, 1938. Kristallnacht is also known as the November Pogrom, “Night of Broken Glass,” and “Crystal Night.” Orchestrated by the Nazis in retaliation for the assassination of a German embassy official in Paris by a seventeen-year-old Jewish youth named Herchel Grynzspan, 1,400 synagogues and 7,000 businesses were destroyed, almost 100 Jews were killed, and 30,000 were arrested and sent to concentration camps.
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This theme focuses on the ways in which survivors observed Jewish holidays in the ghettos and camps.
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This set of clips from the Institute's archive showcases survivors before the camera performing music that helped sustain them during the Holocaust.
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A collection of clips featuring women speaking about their experiences during the Holocaust and that appears in the study guide "Women and the Holocaust: Courage and Compassion," produced in partnership with the United Nations in 2011.
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These are survivors’ accounts of losing loved ones in the midst of genocide.
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These are accounts of life after genocide—including, but not limited to, experiences after liberation from captivity or emergence from hiding—and often includes a message for future generations.
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Liberation is typically characterized by the arrival of Allied forces. Interviewees tell of liberation from concentration camps, or during death marches, or may describe liberation upon emergence from hiding.
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"Concentration Camps" or "Labor Camps" were facilities in which people were incarcerated on the basis of their political and/or religious beliefs or ethnicity, usually without regard to due process.
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This theme focuses on how the Nazis forced large numbers of Jews into restricted housing areas, often enforced with walls, fences, and/or guard towers. Movement in and out of the ghettos was strictly controlled and violation was punishable by death.
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These testimony segments focus on physical concealment (as an individual or part of a family) to avoid ghettoization, incarceration, deporation, or other forms of persecution
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These testimony segments focus on descriptions of home life, family events, religious observances, and education before the occurrence of genocide.