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The world cannot build a future without remembering the terrible past
“Memory, Awareness, and Education” were the keywords of a conference of education ministers organized by the Polish Ministry of National Education in Oświęcim on the 65th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz. More than 30 guests, including Polish education minister Katarzyna Hall, Minister of Education and Science of the Russian Federation Andrey Fursenko, and Israel Minster of Education Gideon Sa’ar met at the Center for Dialogue and Prayer.
“I hope that the meeting of ministers will make it possible to develop principles that will help safeguard memory and make young people more familiar with the subject of the Holocaust. It is also an effort to fulfill an obligation towards the former prisoners who appealed to us never to forget the tragedy that occurred in the concentration camps, said Auschwitz Museum Director Krystyna Oleksy, who is also the head of the International Center for Education about Auschwitz and the Holocaust. She was honored with the Medal of the Commission of National Education, awarded by the Ministry of National Education of the Polish Republic.
The meeting of the ministers of education might lead to an important place for subjects connected with the history of Auschwitz and the history of the Holocaust in the school curricula in many countries. This is a question of political will above all. Furthermore, education ministries frequently support institutions involved in promoting knowledge about the history of the Holocaust.
At the end of the conference, the ministers approved a message to be read out during the main ceremonies at the Auschwitz II-Birkenau site.
A Message from Ministers of Education at the Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial: Learning to Remember
If there is one place in the world that should arouse our consciences, that place is Auschwitz-Birkenau—the preserved space of the former Nazi German concentration and extermination camp. Despite the passage of the years, it speaks profoundly to each sensitive mind.
Today, we know how fragile our world is. Sixty-five years after the liberation of Auschwitz, the crime of genocide continues to be committed in various places around the world, as if humanity had learned nothing from the tragic lessons of World War II. For this reason, young people should have an opportunity within the educational system for direct contact with this place on which history has left its awful mark.
The world cannot build a future without remembering the terrible past.
Knowledge about the Holocaust and the Teaching of Memory, including the difficult and painful memories, are therefore necessary within the educational process not only to remind the world about the tragedy of the Victims of Auschwitz-Birkenau, but also for memory to spur the younger generation, in particular, to take bold responsibility for the fate of the world.
