Students should seek the Shoah Foundation’s testimonies

Leavey Library is one of the most crowded areas on campus, yet the fourth floor remains a mystery to the majority of its visitors, even within the USC community. 

USC Shoah Foundation relocated to the top floor of Leavey in late 2018.  However, its founding has a deeper history. In 1994, filmmaker Steven Spielberg founded the institute to preserve testimonies from Holocaust survivors. Now, in 2019, it is one of the largest digital collections of its kind, with over 55,000 testimonies that amount to over 115,000 hours. The Foundation has since expanded to document other genocides such as the Nanjing Massacre and the Rwandan, Armenian and Guatemalan genocides. 

The scale of its work is as impressive as it is expansive. Its core mission statement reads, “To overcome prejudice, intolerance and hatred — and the suffering they cause — through the educational use of the Institute’s Visual History Archive.” The educational component is both its vision and a promise. Among its numerous programs are IWitness, Teacher Innovation Network, Echoes & Reflections and others that reach an international audience. 

The Foundation’s global impact and outreach are at complete odds with the USC community’s indifference and ignorance of the organization. The Shoah Foundation offers student research fellowships and the Visual History Archive is free to register and use.

But all these reasons still beg the question: Why? 

Why should students and faculty, already knee-deep in work, make the time and effort to explore the Shoah Foundation? Why should the USC community watch testimonies from the Visual History Archive when current events already offer a slew of horrifying news about one mass shooting or another? Why should Trojans who don’t have familial or historical ties to these genocides hear stories of immense pain and grief from strangers?

Though it is easy to complain about the homework, jobs or other trivialities of everyday life, students should not forget that being a student at USC — or any other university — is a privilege that many cannot claim. In acknowledging this privilege, students and faculty should take it upon themselves, be that for an adjunct educational opportunity or a necessary humanity lesson, to listen to and learn from the stories of humans’ capacity for evil and their restoration of goodness through will and love.  

National and local newspapers are rife with stories of mass shootings, deaths in migration detention centers, locker-room talk in the highest levels of leadership. Watching testimonies of genocide survivors does seem like overkill — another way to burden the depressed morale of the youth and of the country at large. But while watching survivors recount stories of their trauma is difficult, these testimonies are traced with human strength and love in the face of the worst. Survivors onscreen are brave enough to share their painful pasts. Such an act is a form of activism that demands genocides are never repeated. These testimonies serve as reminders that, even in the midst of contemporary disasters and failures, truth and hope can and will persevere. 

These testimonies are difficult to empathize with, for many have not experienced the tragedy and trauma survivors have undergone. Regardless, listening without appropriation and interruption is a skill the world needs, perhaps now more than ever. The University community and the world at large need to listen to these stories — not to empathize, but to cultivate empathy. Empathy is compassion that can, from a respectful distance, grieve and celebrate the survivor’s loss and strength. That, in turn, becomes a formative perspective in which everyday trivial matters can be seen in a new light with more hope, courage and love.