International Holocaust Remembrance Day Commemoration 2027
About the Event
Join us for our annual International Holocaust Remembrance Day Commemoration, featuring Stephen Smith, Executive Director Emeritus of the USC Shoah Foundation!
Stephen Smith first met Holocaust Survivor Pinchas Gutter in Cape Town, South Africa in 1998. In a friendship that has spanned three decades, they went on a search to find Pinchas’ twin sister who was last seen outside the gas chamber at Majdanek death camp. As they searched for her, they delved into Pinchas’s memory, and what transpired after the Holocaust. During AHEC’s International Holocaust Remembrance Day Commemoration, Stephen will describe the journey he has been on with Pinchas, including helping Pinchas uncover his memories of the Holocaust and turning Pinchas into the world’s first interactive hologram through the Dimensions in Testimony program.
This program is free, but registration is required. Register below!
About the Speakers
Stephen Smith
Stephen D. Smith is a respected figure in the fields of oral history, genocide studies, and innovative memory preservation technologies. His career is marked by numerous groundbreaking initiatives and leadership roles. Smith served for twelve years as Executive Director of USC Shoah Foundation, the archive founded by Steven Spielberg to document the Holocaust and global genocides. He holds the position of USC Visiting Professor of Religion, focusing his research on genocide-related testimony.
Currently, Smith is the founder of Lumenairi LLC and the co-creator of Our Jewish Story, a Memory Workers project powered by Lumenairi. Developed in association with the National Library of Israel, this groundbreaking global Jewish storytelling platform is designed to bring together Jewish voices, memories, and experiences from around the world into one accessible digital space — placing the richness of Jewish history and identity in the palm of your hand.
As an author, Smith has published several books, including, “The Holocaust and the Christian World” (2016), “Never Again, Yet Again” (2019), “The Trajectory of Holocaust Memory” (2023) and has a forthcoming book “Holocaust XR”. His work uniquely combines his theological background with cutting-edge technology to preserve and share the stories of Holocaust and genocide survivors. In recognition of his significant contributions, Stephen D. Smith has been honored as a Member of the Order of the British Empire.