News
New educational pack for teachers to help prepare for and reflect upon a visit to the Auschwitz Memorial
Lesson scenarios for preparing for and summarising a visit to the Auschwitz Memorial Site are the main part of a new educational pack prepared by the International Center for Education about Auschwitz and the Holocaust. It is primarily addressed to teachers who plan to visit the Museum with their classes.
"A visit to the site of the former camp is a significant challenge for young people on many levels. It is undoubtedly a difficult emotional and personal experience but also a factual challenge. We are aware of the complex history of the German Nazi Auschwitz camp. Therefore, we offer teachers ready-made lesson plans that will allow the entire group to prepare for the visit, and later, to draw conclusions from such a special experience, which is much more than just a history lesson," said Andrzej Kacorzyk, director of the International Center for Education about Auschwitz and the Holocaust.
Both scenarios are based on the multibooks available on the Museum's website.
The preparatory lesson plan aims not only to clarify basic facts about the functions of Auschwitz as a concentration and extermination camp but also to introduce the four largest victim groups of the camp: Jews, Poles, Roma and Sinti, and Soviet POWs, explaining the reasons for their persecution and deportation to Auschwitz by Nazi Germany. Historical information is accompanied by excerpts from accounts and biographies of Survivors of the camp.
The summarizing lesson plan is titled "Never, ever be a passive bystander!" Its primary goal is to create a platform for personal reflection after visiting the Memorial, as well as a discussion about the scale of the crimes committed at Auschwitz, and our contemporary and personal responsibility for the world we live in as bystanders witnessing the effects of various ideologies of hate.
- Education systems have crammed memory into history lessons, as if memory equals historical knowledge. This is a fundamental mistake. This is why in our schools it depends solely on the wisdom of the teacher whether, on the basis of historical knowledge, questions linked to memory will arise in the minds of the pupils: warnings linked to today's human choices, to the understanding of challenges and threats, to growing populism and demagogy, to xenophobia and hate speech in the public space,’ stressed Museum Director Dr. Piotr M. A. Cywiński.
"Educational systems have pushed memory into history lessons as if memory equaled historical knowledge. This is a fundamental error. This is why in our schools it depends solely on the wisdom of the teacher whether, based on historical knowledge, questions linked to memory will arise in the minds of the pupils: warnings linked to today's human choices, to the understanding of challenges and threats, to growing populism and demagogy, to xenophobia and hate speech in the public space," emphasized Dr. Piotr M. A. Cywiński, director of the Museum.
An important part of the summarizing classes is working with biographical material and messages from witnesses of history.
The title of the lessons comes from a speech by Roman Kent, an Auschwitz survivor, which he delivered on January 27, 2015, during the commemoration of the 70th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz: "We must all teach our children tolerance and understanding, both at home and in school. […] We all must make it clear that hate is never right and love is never wrong! [...] No one should ever be a spectator! I feel so strongly about this point that if I had the power, I would add an Eleventh Commandment to the universally accepted Ten Commandments: ‘You should never, ever be a bystander."
All lesson plans are available for free in both Polish and English versions. We also encourage individual use of multibooks as preparation and summary for visiting the Auschwitz Memorial.