News
Postgraduate course in totalitarianism, nazism, and the Holocaust
This year’s postgraduate course on Totalitarianism, Nazism, and the Holocaust opened at the Museum on October 17, 2003.
The course aims at making teachers in the humanities (history, Polish, and catechism) more familiar with the history of Nazism and the German death camps, the persecution of the Jews in the Third Reich, and the persecution of Poles under occupation.
The lectures, workshops, and seminars will also cover the history of the Polish Jews and Polish-Jewish relations. The history lectures will be supplemented by sociology lectures on the mechanisms that account for the origins, formation, and reinforcement of prejudice and stereotypes, as well as the issue of the dialogue between Judaism and Christianity.
Forty-five teachers and clergy have been accepted in this year’s course. They come not only from Małopolska and Silesia provinces, but also from such distant parts of Poland as Gdańsk, Świnoujście, Poznań, and Białystok. Professor Jacek Chrobaczyński delivered the inaugural lecture.
History
The postgraduate course has been held annually since 1998 and is organized by the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum in Oświęcim and the National Education Commission Pedagogical Academy in Cracow.
Professor Wacław Długoborski, a former Auschwitz prisoner, historian, lecturer at the Silesian University, and scientific curator of the Museum, and Professor Jacek Chrobaczyński, a historian at the Pedagogical Academy, founded the course as a response to the clear need to raise the awareness of Totalitarianism, Nazism, and the Holocaust among humanities subject teachers. The course is also intended as a knowledge resource for teachers on the subject of the Holocaust.
Lecturers
Historians, literary critics, and sociologists from leading Polish universities join Pedagogical Academy staff and Museum historians on the teaching staff. Former prisoners will also come to the Museum as guest lecturers on the course, as will politicians and cultural figures.
Subjects
Subjects covered include issues in the history of the Second World War with emphasis on the history of the Holocaust, the reasons for the rise of totalitarian systems including Nazism, and issues in the prewar life and culture of the Jews. There will be lectures on the rise of prejudice and related phenomena such as anti-Semitism and xenophobia.
Preparing course participants for intercultural dialogue and teaching them how to counteract prejudices and stereotypes among young people are important elements in this type of professional enhancement for teachers.
