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"We share a common goal" - Czech and Polish seminar for teachers and educators
The second part of the seminar for Czech and Polish educators ended in Terezin on 4 October 2015. The seminar, devoted to the history of the Theresienstadt Ghetto was jointly prepared by the International Centre for Education about Auschwitz and the Holocaust at the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum and the Terezin Memorial. The seminar was attended by 29 teachers and educators from Poland and the Czech Republic, who are involved as part of their professional careers and interests, in the history of the former Auschwitz camp, the Holocaust and II World War.
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As part of the seminar, the teachers participated in a study tour of the premises of the former ghetto as well as the so-called Little Fortress, which was a gestapo prison facility and execution site during the war. The most significant places visited by the participants of the seminar include among others, the former housing barracks, the house of worship in the Magdeburg Barracks, the columbarium with a mortuary room and the Ghetto Museum. The educators also took part in lectures, workshops and film screenings.
An essential element of the seminar was to share experiences in teaching about the Holocaust through joint preparation of workshops based on earlier projects conducted by teachers. The joint workshop provided an avenue for discussion on various ways of active and innovative teaching about the history of II world war to the youth of lower and upper secondary schools as well as the special needs of education.
'These seminars are important for various reasons: teachers can broaden their knowledge on several aspects of the Holocaust. In addition, by visiting the Memorial Site, they can feel the atmosphere; get closer to its history, and people connected with it. However, I would like to emphasize one particular advantage of these “joint” seminars: teachers get the chance to meet fellow teachers from their country and abroad, discuss with them, exchange educational ideas as well as make new friends. All these put together is extremely important for their personal and professional lives,' stressed Jiří Kleker, responsible for coordinating the project on behalf of the Terezin Memorial.
The City of Terezin from November 1941 served as a concentration point for Jews from the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia, areas of the Third Reich, the Netherlands, Denmark, Slovakia and Hungary. Over 88 thousand people were deported from the Theresienstadt Ghetto to Auschwitz. This place is strongly associated with the history of the family camp for Jews from Terezin, which was established in September 1943 at the section BIIb Auschwitz II-Birkenau.
