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International Seminar for European Teachers
Auschwitz: History, Education, and Symbolism is a seminar for European teachers being held from September 6-11, 2006 at the International Center for Education about Auschwitz and the Holocaust
Participants include teachers from many European countries who took part in training at the Yad Vashem Institute in Jerusalem last year. "The International School for teaching about the Holocaust there has an educational program for teachers from Europe," said Alicja Białecka, director of the Program Section at the ICEAH. "As a result of cooperation between the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum in Oświęcim and Yad Vashem, plans arose to continue those seminars under a somewhat modified formula, as second-stage seminars. The seminar now underway is an example of this continuation. Two people from each of the European countries taking part in the Yad Vashem schooling have been invited."
"This is the first seminar of its kind to be organized by the Museum and Yad Vashem for participants from other countries," added Krystyna Oleksy, Museum deputy director for education. "During this year's seminar, the teaching will be done by lecturers, historians, and education specialists from the Auschwitz Museum and Yad Vashem. We have also invited lecturers from the Jagiellonian University."
"The six-day program is very full. It also includes study tours of the Auschwitz site, lectures, workshops, and a tour of Cracow," said Ewa Matlak, the ICEAH resource person for the group.
"We are trying to show this international group from western, central, and eastern Europe, what we do here in the field of teaching about Auschwitz and the Holocaust, in terms of seeing history from the Polish perspective. We also want to show today's Poland to the participants," remarked Białecka.
"The seminar sessions concentrate to a large degree on the methodology of teaching about Auschwitz and the Holocaust," she adds, "and on the use that can be made of the authentic historical memorials located in Poland and around the world, how to include them in the educational process. It may be true that we are working with teachers, but young people are our most important audience. We want the process of teaching in schools to improve and be more interesting. Nor will there be a lack of strictly historical lectures in the seminar schedule."
Greeting the participants at the inaugural meeting of the seminar, Oleksy said that, "together with our partner, Yad Vashem, we are calling this a European seminar. Although Auschwitz is an issue for all humanity, it is above all an issue of European responsibility. We—Europeans and educators—bear a special responsibility for the European historical heritage and a responsibility for the future of Europe."
