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The Significance of Education about Auschwitz: The Program Board of the ICEAH Meets
The Program Board of the International Center for Education about Auschwitz and the Holocaust has met at the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum.
Members of the Board heard a report on the Center’s work over the past year. There was much discussion of the innovative educational programs addressed to inmates of penal institutions in Małopolska and Silesia, and to people with learning disabilities. The Board also listened to an overview of the e-learning platform that is being prepared. Testing of the first six Internet lessons will begin this year.
Auschwitz Museum Director Dr. Piotr M.A. Cywiński outlined the new introductory exhibition and plans for the new visitor service center that is intended to make things easier for the more than one million people who come each year to see the authentic site of the Nazi German Auschwitz concentration camp and extermination center.
There was also discussion of the degree to which the ICEAH should expand its efforts to cover the subjects of genocide, violations of human rights, and the prevention of crimes against humanity. “There is a tendency to downplay education about the Holocaust in favor of the prevention of genocide and crimes against humanity or human rights. The International Center for Education about Auschwitz and the Holocaust is also confronted by this challenge,” said Dr. Piotr Trojański, academic advisor to the ICEAH and a lecturer at the Pedagogical University in Cracow.
Members of the Board stressed the significance of education about Auschwitz in the process of forming the attitudes of young people. “Historians are concerned with gathering facts, while education gives them meaning. Our goal is for people who visit this place to be able to say years later that it was an important experience for them, which made an impact on their attitudes, morality, values, and the way they see the world. That’s our job,” said Dorit Novak of the Yad Vashem Institute in Jerusalem.
See the video: The Significance of Education about Auschwitz
Members of the Program Board:
- Red. Stefan Wilkanowicz — przewodniczący Rady
- Prof. Jonathan Webber — wiceprzewodniczący Rady
- Dr Piotr M.A. Cywiński — wiceprzewodniczący
- Dr hab. Barbara Engelking-Boni
- Dr Gideon Greif
- Dr Piotr Paziński
- Dr Wolf Kaiser
- Mecenas Serge Klarsfeld
- Dorit Novak
- Marcello Pezzetti
