Holocaust education
The text that follows explores the role that teaching and learning about the Holocaust can play in three specific contexts: the prevention of genocide, the promotion of human rights and dealing with traumatic pasts.
[1] The Holocaust began with abuses of power and gross human rights violations by Nazi Germany that over time escalated into war and genocide.
The discriminatory policies and practices that dehumanized and marginalized Jews and other minority or political groups (such as depriving individuals of their citizenship) illuminate how human rights violations when combined with factors such as the abuse of power and/or exclusionary ideology can become normalized in a society – even one framed by the rule of law.
That these policies escalated over time to a state-sponsored system for murder underlines the dangerous environment that can result when human rights are disavowed.
A number of organizations have considered these points of intersection, including the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA), in partnership with Yad Vashem,[5] and the German Foundation "Remembrance, Responsibility and Future" (EVZ).
[6] Educating about the Holocaust is primarily a duty for European countries, in which considerable segments of societies either collaborated with Nazi Germany or stood by.
After an initial period of silence and/or minimization, many countries have developed an understanding of the need to educate about the Holocaust and the obligation to investigate and face their national past.
Even more than 70 years after the events, a self-critical vision of history that accounts for the range of responsibilities in the murder of Jews and other groups such as the Roma and Poles has yet to emerge in many places.
[7] The journalist Alan Posener attributed Germany's "growing historical amnesia" in part to a failure by the German film and television industry to reflect the country's history accurately.
Social cohesion remains fractured and progress is blocked by the country's refusal to deal with its national history of genocide and mass atrocities and the long-term trauma such crimes cause.
[11] Educating learners about antisemitism focuses on equipping them with knowledge, skills and competencies that empower them to contribute to a culture of human rights and resist the stereotypes and misconceptions that lead to discrimination and violence against Jews.
[16] Global citizenship education aims to develop students to be informed and critically literate, socially connected, respectful of diversity, and ethically responsible and engaged.
