News

Rethinking Holocaust Education - the summary of an international project

The eighteen-month international project Rethinking Holocaust Education, jointly carried out by the International Center for Education about Auschwitz and the Holocaust at the Auschwitz Museum and the Ghetto Fighters’ House Museum in Israel, concluded with the presentation of ten projects.

Forty-one participants from fourteen countries and thirty-four organizations took part in the project, including museums, academic institutions, memorial sites and research centers.

At the seminar held in Kraków on 5–8 October, the work of international interdisciplinary teams was summarized. Their task was to explore new approaches to Holocaust education, experiment with new solutions, collaborate across cultural and disciplinary boundaries, and seek responses to the contemporary challenges facing Holocaust education.

Each group was asked to address a specific challenge related to Holocaust education:

1. How can we preserve and strengthen the impact of Holocaust education when so many years have passed?
2. How can Holocaust education respond to rising antisemitism and serve as an effective tool to combat it?
3. What can be done to make Holocaust education accessible to everyone?
4. How can we combine the specifically Jewish perspective on the Holocaust with the universal lessons of this tragedy for humanity in education?
5. What can be done to ensure Holocaust education remains authentic despite the passing of Survivors?
6. How can we respond to distortions and falsifications concerning the Holocaust?

The project was organized using a format inspired by hackathons, in which participants, usually from the world of technology, are challenged to solve a specific problem. In each case, the final result was an outline of a comprehensive project intended to address the challenge.

In total, ten major projects were developed. They are aimed both at teachers and educators, as well as at young people who, with appropriate methodological support, have considerable potential to engage in peer-to-peer education through the channels most popular within their age groups.

The outcomes include tools for analyzing distortions and falsehoods concerning Holocaust history, materials for identifying prejudices that educators encounter today, digital platforms providing access to archival materials, and proposals for educational activities tailored to the needs of people with disabilities.

“Holocaust education in a dynamically changing world is confronted with ever new and increasingly complex challenges. Responding to them requires openness, courage, curiosity and a willingness to reconsider well-established methods and assumptions. We hope that the experiences gained during the project will continue to accompany its participants in their everyday work, in the implementation of further educational initiatives and in the development of their institutions,” wrote the project organizers, educators from the International Center for Education about Auschwitz and the Holocaust and the Ghetto Fighters’ House Museum, in their summary.

“We would like the participants to maintain the relationships they have built, continue sharing ideas and experiences, and support one another in developing innovative approaches to education within their organizations. Every new question, every new collaboration and every creative solution can contribute to the development of the entire field and become an inspiration to others,” they added.

In their view, "the success of the joint undertaking lies not only in the innovative ideas and educational projects that were developed, but also in a change in the way Holocaust education is approached and in the inspiration it has provided for further development."

The Rethinking Holocaust Education project has been financially supported by the Claims Conference, the Center for the Study of Antisemitism at New York University, and The Auschwitz-Birkenau Death Camp Victims Memorial Foundation.