Stephen D Smith

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Apr 7, 2022, 9:52 PM

Truth is a mighty weapon in fight against inhumanity

Ukrainian servicemen attach a cable to the body of a civilian while checking for booby traps in the formerly Russian-occupied Kyiv suburb of Bucha, Ukraine, Saturday, April 2, 2022. As Russian forces pull back from Ukraine's capital region, retreating troops are creating a "catastrophic" situation for civilians by leaving mines around homes, abandoned equipment and "even the bodies of those killed," President Volodymyr Zelenskyy warned Saturday.(AP Photo/Vadim Ghirda)

The charred and twisted metal on our screens from Bucha, near Kyiv, appear like an apocalyptic scene from Dante’s Inferno. Abandoned military hardware and soft bodies tied and shot from behind are reminiscent of scenes from the Second World...

Jun 1, 2016, 1:28 AM

Tearing Off the Label: Resistance as a State of Mind

The young Nazi approached 13-year-old Szulem Czygielmamn as he walked on the sidewalk of Lubartowska Street in Lublin, Poland, and shoved him off the sidewalk. Szulem was lucky; Jews had died for less. In this moment, he decided he was...

Feb 25, 2015, 10:44 PM

Anti-Semitism is a genocidal killer

Auschwitz, the final destination of Jewish people from across Europe destined to be murdered as a part of the Nazi genocide of the Jews. Auschwitz, a place that housed prisoners of many religions, persuasions, minorities and nationalities, but whose evil...

Nov 1, 2014, 11:03 PM

I have only known Harry Reicher for three months, and yet today I say goodbye to him as an old friend. I don’t know why, but I wasn’t expecting to meet a devout and practicing Jew the day he first...

Sep 13, 2014, 10:04 AM

Anti-Semitism: Know It. Name It. Shame It.

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. Whenever it appears, anti-Semitism...

Aug 27, 2014, 7:28 PM

Globalization of Hatred

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...

Aug 2, 2014, 7:33 AM

Holy war and the threat of genocide

While all eyes are on Gaza, ISIS is brazenly committing atrocities in Iraq

Jul 22, 2014, 8:06 PM

Time for a Palestinian Uprising from Within

The statistics are rolling in: Thousands of rockets fired, thousands of homes destroyed, 65,000 reservists deployed, hundreds of Palestinian and tens of Israeli dead, miles of print, hours of commentary, two ceasefires. But for all our statistics, are we...

Jun 4, 2014, 4:37 AM

Testimony Through the Graves of Guatemala

On June 2, 1982, armed members of the Guatemalan military walked into the village of Pambach. They separated men from the women and children, then took about 80 men from the village down into the valley. They told the...

Apr 25, 2014, 2:20 AM

Historical Memory

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 –...

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About Me

Stephen D Smith is Executive Director of the USC Shoah Foundation in Los Angeles, whose Visual History Archive holds 52,000 testimonies of eyewitnesses to the Holocaust and other genocides. He founded the UK Holocaust Centre, The Aegis Trust for the prevention of crimes against humanity and genocide. He was Project Director of the Kigali Genocide Centre, Rwanda. Smith, who trained as a Christian theologian, is an author, educator and researcher interested in memory of the Holocaust, and the causes and consequences of human conflict. Views expressed in this blog are his own and do not necessarily represent the views of USC Shoah Foundation.