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The Dilemmas and Challenges Facing Education
A nationwide educational and research conference titled Auschwitz and the Holocaust: Dilemmas and Challenges for Polish Education, hosted jointly by the International Center for Education about Auschwitz and the Holocaust and the Jagiellonian University Center for Holocaust Research, was held at the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum.
Dr. Piotr Trojański of the ICEAH characterized the goal of the conference as summing up Polish achievements in research and education in the field. “The educational reform of 1999 made the Holocaust a required part of the school curriculum,” he noted. “Much has changed since then. We wanted to draw up a balance sheet for this period and consider what remains to be done.”
Almost 50 school and university teachers from all over Poland attended. One of them, Dr. Krzysztof Mucha of Łódź, who lectures at the university there and is also a teacher in a local high school, said that it was important to meet people working in the same field on a regular basis and exchange experience. “People meet who are involved in this issue every day on both the theoretical and the practical level. It is important to examine and compare these perspectives—historical findings, university teaching, and the latest trends around the world—with the work that people do in specific schools, in places all over Poland,” he said.
“For many years, until the 1990s, there were for all practical purposes two narratives about Auschwitz,” said Trojański. “One of them, predominant in Poland, treated Auschwitz as the main site for the commemoration and martyrdom of the Polish people. The other narrative, in other countries in the West, identified Auschwitz primarily with the Holocaust. Now we are trying to combine these two narratives. We are thinking over the dilemmas connected with various interpretations of this place, with the differences in symbolism and in the impact of that symbolism on education.”
The most important issues at the conference included the significance of education about Auschwitz and the Holocaust for the 21st century, the role of Auschwitz and the Holocaust in the awareness of young people, the role of museums and memorial sites in extracurricular education, the way that young people encounter the issue of Auschwitz and the Holocaust, and the nature of school and university teaching about Auschwitz and the Holocaust.
Conference sessions were held at the Museum, the International Youth Meeting House, and the Center for Dialogue and Prayer. “The fact that lectures and workshops were held at different places in Oświęcim meant that participants from all over Poland had a chance to see that this city is an exceptional place for meetings and education,” said Alicja Białecka, head of programming for the ICEAH. “Here, we talk not only about the history of Auschwitz and the Holocaust, but also about the values that are important for the education of the younger generation today.”
