Abstract: The paper is devoted to the presentation of the results of a research survey, the aim of which was to find out the opinions of teachers who were professionally working at the first level of primary schools at the time of the quantitative research survey. A total of 319 primary school first cycle teacher education students, 300 females and 19 males, participated in the study at different stage I of their studies. A certain limit to the inclusion of these events in teaching at all levels of institutional education, from our point of view, is the concern of educators about the reaction of the pupils’ legal representatives. We are convinced that, with appropriately chosen methods and forms of teaching, the Shoah can be implemented in the teaching of the first level of primary schools through methods that lead to the de-abstraction of this phenomenon. In most cases in favor of integrating the Shoah phenomenon into teaching at the first level of primary schools, especially through authentic artistic creations of children.
IMPACT STATEMENT
The paper is devoted to the presentation of the results of a research investigation conducted among 319 students of teaching for the first stage of primary schools. The evaluation of the questionnaires shows that most issues are included in the eighth grade of primary school, in the subject of History, which is predestined by its content to integrate events anchored in history. The subjects of Civic Education and Czech Language and Literature also scored significantly. Positive responses were received, while Education in European and Global Contexts, Education for Democratic Citizenship and Multicultural Education were among the cross-cutting themes.
Abstract: Hatred of Jews noticed a dramatic rise after the events of October 7, 2023. Since Holocaust education was presented for years as the answer to the hatred of Jews, the question almost automatically occurs: Has Holocaust education failed? Does it need to be revised or totally reorganized? How do things differently in the future? How can Holocaust education contribute to combating hatred of Jews? The German Holocaust education expert and historian, Dr. Melanie Carina Schmoll, PhD, provides answers to these questions. This book teaches academics and practitioners why and what to expect when teaching about the Holocaust. Content, outcome of Holocaust education, gaps in knowledge and the reasons for are examined. In comprehensible explanations, Dr. Schmoll shows the potential failures in Holocaust education and why the teaching of history still matters. Hatred of Jews-A Failure of Holocaust Education? bridges the gap between academic research and practical support for educators, teachers, and textbook publishers. A step-by-step guide helps on how to improve it in the future.
Abstract: NEW YORK, NEW YORK: January 23, 2025—The Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany (Claims Conference) today released the first-ever, eight-country Index on Holocaust Knowledge and Awareness, exposing a global trend in fading knowledge of basic facts about the Holocaust. The countries surveyed include the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Austria, Germany, Poland, Hungary and Romania.
The majority of respondents in each country, except Romania, believe something like the Holocaust (another mass genocide against Jewish people) could happen again today. Concern is highest in the United States, where more than three-quarters (76%) of all adults surveyed believe something like the Holocaust could happen again today, followed by the U.K. at 69%, France at 63%, Austria at 62%, Germany at 61%, Poland at 54%, Hungary at 52%, and Romania at 44%.
Shockingly, some adults surveyed say that they had not heard or weren’t sure if they had heard of the Holocaust (Shoah) prior to taking the survey. This is amplified among young adults ages 18-29 who are the most recent reflection of local education systems; when surveyed, they indicated that they had not heard or weren’t sure if they had heard of the Holocaust (Shoah): France (46%), Romania (15%), Austria (14%) and Germany (12%). Additionally, while Auschwitz-Birkenau is the most well-known camp, nearly half (48%) of Americans surveyed are unable to name a single camp or ghetto established by the Nazis during World War II.
On a more positive note, there is overwhelming support for Holocaust education. Across all countries surveyed, nine-in-10 or more adults believe it is important to continue teaching about the Holocaust, in part, so it does not happen again.
Abstract: This book addresses the issues of memory (a more suitable word would be Marianne Hirsh’s term of postmemory) of the Holocaust among young Poles, the attitudes towards Jews and the Holocaust in the comparative context of educational developments in other countries. The term “Jews” is, as rightly noted Joanna Tokarska-Bakir (2010) a decontextualized term used here in the meaning of Antoni Sułek (2010) as a collective “symbolic” entity. The focus was on education (transmitting values), attitudinal changes and actions undertaken to preserve (or counteract) the memory of Jews and their culture in contemporary Poland. The study to which the book primarly refers was conducted in 2008 and was a second study on a national representative sample of Polish adolescents after the first one undertaken in 1998. The data may seem remote from the current political situation of stepping back from the tendency to increase education about the Holocaust which dominated after 1989 and especially between 2000 and 2005, nonetheless they present trends and outcomes of specific educational interventions which are universal and may set examples for various geopolitical contexts.
The focus of this research was not primarily on the politics of remembrance, which often takes a national approach, although state initiatives are also brought to the attention of the reader, but rather on grassroots action, often initiated by local civil society organizations (NGOs) or individual teachers and/or students. This study has attempted to discover the place that Jews have (or do not have) in the culture of memory in Poland, where there lived the largest Jewish community in pre-war Europe, more than 90% of which was murdered during the Holocaust. The challenge was to show the diversity of phenomena aimed at integrating Jewish history and culture into national culture, including areas of extracurricular education, often against mainstream educational policy, bearing in mind that the Jews currently living in Poland are also, in many cases, active partners in various public initiatives. It is rare to find in-depth empirical research investigating the ensemble of areas of memory construction and the attitudes of youth as an ensemble, including the evaluation of actions (programmes of non-governmental organisations and school projects) in the field of education, particularly with reference to the long-term effects of educational programmes. The assumption prior to this project was that the asking of questions appearing during this research would stimulate further studies.
The book is divided into three parts: Memory, Attitudes and Actions. All three parts of the book, although aimed at analysing an ongoing process of reconstructing and deconstructing memory of the Holocaust in post-2000 Poland, including the dynamics of the attitudes of Polish youth toward Jews, the Shoah and memory of the Shoah, are grounded in different theories and were inspired by various concepts. The assumption prior to the study was that this complex process of attitudinal change cannot be interpreted and explained within the framework on one single academic discipline or one theory. Education and the cultural studies definitely played a significant role in exploring initiatives undertaken to research, study and commemorate the Holocaust and the remnants of the rich Jewish culture in Poland, but the sociology, anthropology and psychology also played a part in helping to see this process from various angles.
Abstract: Despite the increasingly diverse societal landscape in Greece for more than three decades within a context of migration, understandings of its fragile histories are still limited in shaping a sense of belonging that is open to ‘otherness’. While Greek communities have utilised history as a pathway to maintain identity, other parallel histories and understandings do not resonate with ‘Greekness’ for most, such as the case of Greek Jewry. Critical historical perspectives can benefit from tracing ‘re-membering’ as a feminist practice in the reassessment of societal values of inclusivity. Histories of violence and injustice can also include elements of ‘difficult histories’ and must be embraced to seek acknowledgement of these in promoting social change and cultural analysis for public humanities informing curation and curricula. Between eduscapes, art heritage spaces, an entry into contested and conflictual histories can expand a sense of belonging and the way we imagine our own connected histories with communities, place and nation. Greek Jews do not constitute a strong part of historical memory for Greeks in their past and present; in contrast to what is perceived as ‘official’ history, theirs is quite marginal. As a result, contemporary Greeks, from everyday life to academia, do not have a holistic understanding in relation to the identities of Jews in Greece, their culture or the Holocaust. Given the emergence of a new wave of artistic activism in recent years in response to the ever-increasing dominance of authoritarian neoliberalism, along with activist practices in the art field as undercurrents of resistance, in this intervention I bring together bodies of works to create a dialogic reflection with historical, artistic and feminist sources. In turn, the discussion then explores the spatiotemporal contestations of the historical geographies of Holocaust monuments in Greece. While interrogating historical amnesia, I endeavour to provide a space to engage with ‘difficult histories’ in their aesthetic context as a heritage of healing and social justice.
Abstract: Teaching about the Holocaust is a deeply sensitive and controversial topic in the Republic of Latvia. Due to a Soviet-imposed silence on the topic and the developing nature of democratic education in Latvia, many schools cover this history superficially, if it is covered at all. This study examines a cross-cultural curriculum development project that sought to break the historical silence surrounding the Holocaust in Latvia and provide Latvian teachers with an inviting, defensible, and efficacious curriculum that is both sensitive to societal reluctance to discuss the Holocaust and responsive to the needs of students living in a pluralistic democracy. This ethnographic and descriptive case study draws on multiple interviews with curriculum writers and project personnel, as well as field notes from the 18 month project, and examines how writers arrived at the curricular purposes, aims, goals, and content that would open this closed area. Significant findings include new understandings of the challenges and promises of cross-cultural curriculum deliberation, as well as an analysis of the choices involved in creating a new Holocaust curriculum. These findings suggest numerous implications and considerations for other former Soviet republics and more established democracies grappling with how to develop curricula through just processes while producing materials that foster democratic citizenship.
Topics: Holocaust, Holocaust Commemoration, Holocaust Education, Holocaust Memorials, Holocaust Survivors, Holocaust Survivors: Children of, Holocaust Survivors: Grandchildren of, Memory, Main Topic: Holocaust and Memorial, Jewish Museums, Jewish Heritage, Museums
Abstract: Amsterdam’s National Holocaust Museum is due to open in March 2024. It is the first and only museum to tell the story of the attempt by the Nazis to eradicate Jews from the Netherlands, a history of segregation, persecution, and murder. Yet the story is also one of rescue, survival, and solidarity. One of the museum’s main goals is to engage visitors by involving them in a learning experience, in particular, to encourage young people to study and to develop the skills they need to be able to understand the past, to see how this impacts the present, and to recognize and challenge discrimination and antisemitism today. This article begins by sketching the presentation in the new museum and examines how the museum’s educational facilities (presentation and programs) encourage audiences to think about what they can do to combat discrimination in general, and antisemitism in particular.
Abstract: French students in the third and final year from the Humanities and Social Sciences license degree course traveled to Ukraine and Belorussia between 2017 and 2020, in order to carry out surveys of eyewitnesses to the so-called “Holocaust by Bullets.” The subject-matter stands out in the French scholarly scene, as the Holocaust usually attracts little attention at this level of studies. Students registered in the course hail from license degrees in History, Social Sciences or Geography, and have chosen to attend the course labeled “European Historical Heritage and Citizens’ Thoughts” as a complement to a more classical curriculum, and as a way of enhancing their own university curriculum. The research professors involved have also volunteered to participate as authors of the aforementioned multidisciplinary program, with the aim to raise awareness to research practices on the Holocaust. University professors and teams from the Yahad-in-Unum NGO take turns leading the two-hour weekly sessions. The professors help establish theoretical focus and provide methodological tools, develop lines of investigation on various areas of interest (e.g., mode of operation used in the shootings, collaboration and rescue operations, and neighbors of the crime scene), as well as the context (anti-Semitism, racism, local geopolitics, regional history, culture and society, etc.), while Yahad-in-Unum participants describe actual cases based on records, maps and filmed testimonies. They had the task to provide documents from Soviet and Nazi archives translated from Russian, or from German, and act as translators during fieldwork. Students are encouraged to participate as often as possible and have to prepare analytical reports and presentations following each session, while adopting the position of a researcher.
Abstract: Depuis 2012, l’histoire de la mémoire du génocide des Juifs est étudiée en terminale (série L, ES) dans le cadre du chapitre portant sur « L’historien et les mémoires de la Seconde Guerre mondiale ». Si les enseignants sont sollicités chaque année à l’occasion de journées commémoratives pour transmettre à leurs élèves la mémoire de la Shoah, porteuse d’un enjeu civique, l’introduction dans les programmes de ce sujet d’histoire relève d’une ambition pédagogique qui doit nécessairement s’articuler à la recherche scientifique. Dans cette perspective, cet article fait le point sur les récentes avancées historiographiques concernant l’histoire de la mémoire du génocide des Juifs en France qui permettent d’affiner un découpage chronologique que plusieurs manuels scolaires présentent de façon caricaturale. Il convient ainsi de remplacer le schéma narratif classique polarisé autour de « oubli/mémoire/temps du devoir de mémoire » par une périodisation qui prend en compte les traces -éparses mais significatives- de la mémoire du génocide dans la société française dès les années 1950, ce qui relativise fortement la thèse de son oubli. Les années 1970 et surtout 1980 sont marquées par des mises en récit publiques du génocide qui le situent dans un horizon commun de plus en plus partagé en le référant à des enjeux contemporains (lutte contre le négationnisme et l’antisémitisme, lutte contre l’extrême droite, reconnaissance et réparations dues aux victimes, reconnaissance officielle de la participation active de Vichy, exercice de la justice pour les crimes contre l’humanité). La prise en compte de cette mémoire dans les années 1990 par un État qui reconnait sa responsabilité historique dans le crime génocidaire entraîne de nombreuses actions publiques qui se déclinent sous différentes formes (commémorations, mémoriaux, voyages scolaires). L’Ecole est alors mobilisée comme un acteur privilégié de la transmission de cette mémoire qui est investie d’enjeux éducatifs fondés sur la promotion des valeurs des droits de l’homme et du vivre ensemble.
Abstract: While Holocaust education has been mandatory in Romanian schools for over a decade, educators do not necessarily teach about it. Distortion and obfuscation of Romanian Holocaust crimes during the communist and transition periods means that teachers, like the majority of Romanians, know little about their country’s perpetration of genocides. From 1941 to 1944, the Romanian regime transported part of its Jewish and Romani populations to death camps in Transnistria, where over 200,000 Jews and over 10,000 Roma were killed. Under communism, blame for genocides was placed solely on Nazi Germany, thereby absolving Romanian perpetrators. Post-communism, the official narrative has slowly come under scrutiny, allowing for a restructuring of World War II history to incorporate the deportations and deaths of the country’s Jews and Roma. Ignorance about the Holocaust and prejudice about the minorities affected are at the root of non-compliance in teaching. This is especially the case for the Roma, who are the largest minority in Romania and face continued marginalization and discrimination. In this paper, I focus on cognitive barriers that many history and civics teachers have regarding teaching about the victimization of the Roma minority. These barriers are intrinsically tied to acceptance of new narratives of the Holocaust and reconfigurations of ethnic identities in post-socialist Romania where pressures from the European Union and the USA, among others, have pushed for critical examination of past atrocities in order to strengthen democratic processes.
Abstract: W polskim dyskursie publicznym zauważalna jest ciągłość form antysemickich. Według najnowszych badań, z postaw antysemickich się nie wyrasta, a co gorsza, doszło do rewitalizacji mitu o współodpowiedzialności Żydów za śmierć Jezusa Chrystusa. My, jako członkowie i członkinie Żydowskiego Stowarzyszenia Czulent, zaniepokojeni tym faktem, podjęliśmy się zadania zweryfikowania, dlaczego antysemityzmem zainfekowane są coraz młodsze osoby.
W tym celu postanowiliśmy przeanalizować podręczniki edukacji nieformalnej i podręczniki szkolne, dopuszczone do użytku szkolnego przez Ministerstwo Edukacji Narodowej i sprawdzić, czy i jak w podręcznikach przedstawiane są informacje o szeroko rozumianej kulturze, tradycji i historii Żydów w Polsce. Interesowała nas jakość i rzetelność tych informacji.
Dzięki pomocy m.in. Centrum Badań Holokaustu Uniwersytetu Jagiellońskiego, zrekrutowaliśmy/zrekrutowałyśmy studentki ostatniego roku judaistyki oraz doktorantki Centrum Badań Holocaustu, które przeanalizowały podręczniki.
Na podstawie zebranych materiałów, Alina Cała, Bożena Keff i Anna Lipowska-Teutsch przygotowały artykuły analizujące zastane treści. Interesowało nas to, jaki wpływ treść zawarta w podręczniku ma na młodego odbiorcę i młodą odbiorczynię, uwzględniając tutaj aspekt kulturowy, socjologiczny, historyczny
i psychologiczny. Każdy artykuł wykorzystuje zebrane cytaty z podręczników do języka polskiego, historii, historii i społeczeństwa, wychowania do życia w rodzinie i wiedzy o społeczeństwie. Chcąc ułatwić czytelnikowi/czytelniczce weryfikację cytatów, za każdym razem podawaliśmy w przypisach pełny adres bibliograficzny podręcznika.
Naszym celem było również stworzenie publikacji edukacyjnej, która ma służyć jako narzędzie dla osób zajmujących się edukacją formalną i nieformalną oraz przeciwdziałaniem antysemityzmowi. Dlatego też zostały opracowane artykuły poruszające kwestię antysemityzmu w przestrzeni publicznej (Anna Zawadzka), zjawiska antysemityzmu w Polsce (Anna Makówka-Kwapisiewicz) oraz aspekty psychologiczne i prawne mowy nienawiści (Beata Zadumińska i Szymon Filek).
Spis treści:
Wstęp
Zjawisko antysemityzmu w Polsce na podstawie badań
Analiza podręczników szkolnych i scenariuszy zajęć
Kultura i społeczeństwo w podręcznikach szkolnych z przedmiotów humanistycznych
Kulturoznawcza analiza zawartości podręczników szkolnych związanych z treściami dotyczącymi Żydów (i pokrewnymi)
Pochwała myślenia krytycznego
„Kultywujemy polskość”. Antysemityzm w przestrzeni publicznej
Mowa nienawiści. Sprawcy. Ofiary. Świadkowie
Mowa nienawiści. Aspekty prawne
Biogramy autorów i autorek
. Informacja o projekcie
Informacja o Żydowskim Stowarzyszeniu Czulent
Publikacja powstała w ramach projektu „Antysemityzm nie jest poglądem” zrealizowanego w ramach programu Obywatele dla Demokracji, finansowanego z Funduszy EOG, a także ze środków The Kronhill Pletka Foundation, International Council of Jewish Women, Network of East-West Women oraz dzięki dotacji Kennetha Slatera, Allena Haberberga, Shaloma Levy i Michaela Traisona.
