Veteran Holocaust remembrance advocate enhances USC Shoah Foundation’s initiatives with $30 million contribution

For three decades, USC Shoah Foundation has gathered, safeguarded, and disseminated the testimonies of Holocaust survivors. On Tuesday, USC acknowledged Mickey Shapiro, a longstanding figure in the preservation of Holocaust memory and a vocal opponent of antisemitism, for his recent $30 million donation to the foundation that will help sustain the teachings of the Holocaust for the next three decades and beyond.

The university honored Shapiro’s gift at a gathering outside Leavey Library on USC’s University Park Campus, where the USC Shoah Foundation is located. In connection with the donation, the foundation’s area at the library has been renamed the Mickey Shapiro Headquarters of the USC Shoah Foundation.

Shapiro, who is a member of the Shoah Foundation’s board of councilors and executive committee, aspires for the donation to grant future generations access to the vital resources and educational materials the foundation offers.

“The USC Shoah Foundation’s team, its board, its scholars, and particularly the survivors and their families welcomed me into this endeavor and made me feel part of something fundamentally significant,” Shapiro expressed before the event. “Over the last two decades, its mission and individuals have become part of my identity. The world must learn from the Holocaust, and that need will always persist, which is why this donation is so crucial.”

USC President Carol Folt commended Shapiro and the gift, highlighting his lasting influence on Holocaust remembrance.

“Today we’re going to engrave into the very essence of our university here a donation that will aid in ensuring the conservation and protection of the USC Shoah Foundation,” Folt stated before the audience at the event. “Mickey, this fund will invigorate our commitment to remembrance. It bolsters our dedication to education and an unyielding effort for a world devoid of hatred. It will assist us in numerous ways to maintain a treasured collection for eternity.”

Robert Williams, the chief executive officer of the foundation, remarked that the headquarters now named for Shapiro “will serve as a reminder to every student, every professor, and every visitor who traverses our doors that memory must guide ethical action, towards truth, respect, and the understanding that the Holocaust transcends mere history and influences our present lives.”

Surrounded by his family during the event, Shapiro expressed his hope that the donation will inspire others to contribute to the foundation to ensure that its “vital work continues for the next 30 years and that as an organization, we can tackle some of the most urgent issues we face, including the rise of antisemitism.”

The donation will be allocated toward general operating costs and the foundation’s endowment, which supports essential research and initiatives worldwide while ensuring that the organization remains adaptable to contemporary challenges. Portions of the funds will also go towards the continuous collection and preservation of thousands of testimonies globally that are at risk of deterioration and being lost to public access.

A remarkable reaction

When acclaimed filmmaker Steven
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Spielberg founded the organization on the Universal Studios backlot in 1994, primarily aiming to gather accounts from survivors and witnesses of the Holocaust. The necessity for safeguarding these narratives became clear right away: Within five years, the archive had accumulated 50,000 accounts. This realization prompted the foundation’s leaders to understand that these stories had to be preserved and utilized for educational and research purposes to honor the memories of the survivors who confided in them.

In this light, Spielberg and his team approached USC in 2006, seeking not only a permanent domicile for the collection but also the necessary infrastructure to fulfill the foundation’s educational and research aspirations. Since that time, the entity has branched out in numerous directions, including the gathering of testimonies from other genocides.

While the foundation has, in the past, concentrated on technological advancements to engage new audiences, Holocaust expert Williams was appointed as CEO and Finci-Viterbi Chair over two years ago to implement the organization’s current emphasis on scholarship, academic contributions, and adult audience training.

An illustration of the latter includes the Leadership Summit, which has, for the past three years, enabled the foundation to sponsor a program for Trojan student-athletes to travel to Poland, witness significant Holocaust sites firsthand, and connect with experts and scholars.

“When you consider USC student-athletes, you truly have the elite,” declared Williams, who also serves as the UNESCO Chair on Antisemitism and Holocaust Research and advises the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance. “There’s a tremendous opportunity for USC athletes to progress to professional levels and to advocate against all forms of hate, including antisemitism.”

The foundation has also initiated the Countering Antisemitism Laboratory at the USC Capital Campus to tackle antisemitism globally, including the collection of accounts from victims of antisemitic violence since the Holocaust, with hopes of establishing the largest resource of its kind worldwide. These accounts will be freely accessible online and utilized for research and to educate varied audiences — including journalists, government officials, college students, and business leaders — on how to better acknowledge and combat antisemitism. The lab will also include various initiatives, including an Online Hate Analysis, which will utilize artificial intelligence, qualitative and quantitative methods, and other technologies to comprehend the origins, development, and dissemination of online hate speech.

Shapiro’s donation will support the sustainability of these programs and other USC Shoah Foundation projects worldwide focused on education, research, and the preservation of invaluable testimonies.

“Whether it’s through the Holocaust education we’re initiating here or the ongoing efforts of the USC Shoah Foundation on the USC campuses or through all of his indirect contributions, I can genuinely assert that Mickey Shapiro’s impact will reach millions of students now and into the future,” stated Williams. “That is something no textbook or single organization can claim.”

A global institution for a global cause

Williams clarified that although the East Coast possesses a very robust framework for Holocaust remembrance, education, and research, the same cannot be claimed for the West Coast. “This is significant because these histories have both national and global ramifications,” he explained. “The USC Shoah Foundation ranks among the top five Holocaust institutions globally in terms of size and scope. The presence of one of the most formidable institutions in the world at a major university dedicated to these issues cannot be overstated.”

He emphasized the significance of USC’s Capital Campus in Washington, D.C., in enhancing the foundation’s international relations and broadening the global outreach of its collections and resources. This year, the foundation has already conducted two major programs from the Capital Campus in collaboration with the German and Polish governments focused on Holocaust matters.

“Mickey’s contribution truly ensures that the memories of Holocaust survivors, such as his mother, will help shape our understanding of a more promising future,” remarked Williams.

For Shapiro, USC represents an ideal custodian of the foundation’s mission and archives. “For nearly 20 years since the Shoah Foundation joined the university, they have guaranteed that the organization could maintain the testimonies at the highest standard, and facilitated the growth and impact of its academic, research, and educational programs,” he stated.

A life shaped by narratives

Born in a Displaced Persons camp in Germany shortly after World War II, Shapiro immigrated to the United States with his family, aware that the journey wouldn’t be straightforward. Upon arrival, his father, Asa Shapiro, had merely $8 in hand.

Having grown up speaking Yiddish and German, Shapiro was able to listen as a young boy when fellow survivors came to visit his parents and shared their tales of adversity and resilience around the kitchen table.

“Their bravery and the bravery of every survivor who recounted their experience have been my guiding light,” Shapiro expressed.

Although his mother, Sara, managed to share her story with the foundation in 2012, Shapiro stressed that many significant testimonies from that era remain untold and unpreserved. As a result, he feels a profound obligation to keep those memories alive.

“For those who know me well, they’ve heard me say, ‘If not me, then who? If not now, then when?’” Shapiro noted. “It is vital that we all pose that question and take action to ensure the safety and endurance of the USC Shoah Foundation well into the future.”

A unique legacy

Shapiro and his family have been generous and deeply engaged supporters of the foundation for nearly two decades. In 2015, he established the Sara and Asa Shapiro Annual Holocaust Testimony Scholar and Lecture Fund at USC’s Center for Advanced Genocide Research. This distinguished scholarship — a one-month residency — provides scholars the opportunity to utilize the foundation’s private and public Holocaust and genocide resources, including its Visual History Archive that houses over 61,000 testimonies from witnesses of the Holocaust and other genocides, including those in Armenia and Rwanda. Shapiro also endowed the Sara and Asa Shapiro Visitor’s Lounge at the foundation’s headquarters.

In his concluding remarks at Tuesday’s event, Williams reiterated Shapiro’s significance to the ongoing development and conservation of the invaluable lessons that the foundation safeguards.

“Your participation on our board has significantly contributed to our extraordinary growth in the past two years,” he remarked, “and your generosity has reinforced our capacity to preserve Holocaust memory and combat antisemitism in all its forms. You’ve always recognized what too many ignore: Remembrance is an active commitment to truth.”

Shapiro aspires that his philanthropy with the foundation will encourage others to support its mission. That mission involves striving to find at least 100,000 testimonies worldwide that were recorded on degrading mediums such as VHS tapes that are at risk of being permanently lost. The foundation is also collaborating with key partner institutions to secure old tapes from regions like the former Yugoslavia and promoting local initiatives in Ukraine and Belarus to locate testimonies recorded on cassettes that are not easily accessible.

“Every day, the USC Shoah Foundation is not only preserving memory but shaping a better future for humanity,” Shapiro stated. “The foundation’s work has been, and continues to be, critically important in preserving Holocaust memory, combating Holocaust denial and distortion, and ensuring these life histories are safeguarded for future generations.”

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To support the USC Shoah Foundation’s efforts against antisemitism, hatred, dehumanization, and genocide, contact Andrea Waldron via email or call 213-700-7167.

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