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What’s New at the International School for Holocaust Studies?
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1. New Seminars
In March 2005, the International School for
Holocaust Studies inaugurated the ICHEIC Program for Holocaust
Education in Europe. This program includes, among other activities,
seminars for educators from many European countries. In 2005, 19
such seminars took place at the International School for Holocaust
Studies at Yad Vashem, and another 20 teacher-training programs
with Yad Vashem staff were coordinated in Europe. More information
on the ICHEIC program is available in the newsletter and on this
website.
First-Ever Seminar for Croatian Educators at Yad Vashem
In July 2005, the first seminar of its kind for Croatian educators
took place at Yad Vashem. This seminar is the result of the
cooperation between the Minister of Science, Education and Sports of
the Republic of Croatia, Dr. Dragan Primorac and the International
School for Holocaust Studies. Twenty-five participants attended
the seminar, mostly teachers, from all over Croatia. As part of this
project, attendees presented their notes from the seminar in various
schools throughout Croatia.
Many pedagogical and historical topics were covered, such as Jewish life
and culture before the Holocaust and the roots of antisemitism. In
addition, seminar participants met Croatian survivors, an important
and emotional experience for both survivors and educators.
The effects of the war in Croatia during the 1990s can still be felt today
in Croatian society. As part of the seminar, several meetings were
held with Dr. Natan Kellerman, a psychologist who specializes in
trauma and group dynamics. This meeting allowed the group to
confront events from their own past as the participants learned about the
Holocaust.
Following this seminar, an additional seminar
featuring staff from the International School for Holcaust
Studies will take place in January 2006 in Zagreb.
The success of
this seminar has allowed for greater educational activity and the
strengthening of cooperation between the Ministry of Science,
Education and Sports of the Republic of Croatia and the
International School for Holocaust Studies.
First-Ever Seminar for
Czech Educators at Yad Vashem
In November 2005, the
first ever seminar for Czech teachers and educators took place. This
seminar was also supported by the International Task Force for
Holocaust Education, Remembrance and Research
and the Kennedy Leigh Charitable Trust. Like other ICHEIC
Program seminars, this was a result of cooperation between the
International School for Holocaust Studies and a partner
organization in a European nation.
Participants included teachers, guides, representatives of the Czech
Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports, and senior staff members from the Terezin Memorial. The seminar stressed practical and pedagogical
approaches to Holocaust education.
As part of the seminar, participants modeled educational projects that
they had developed or that their students had prepared. These
projects are available on
this site.
In addition, during the seminar, an exhibit of Czech children’s drawings
relating to the Holocaust opened at the International School for
Holocaust Studies. This exhibit was initiated by Mrs. Hana Greenfeld,
a Terezin and Auschwitz survivor, in conjunction with the Terezin
Memorial. The seminar also included meetings with Czech survivors.
Due to the success of this seminar,
future seminars with Czech educators are currently being planned.
To view the online gallery of this seminar,
click here.
Special Seminar at Yad
Vashem for Survivors of the Rwandan Genocide
Yad Vashem’s International School
for Holocaust Studies has recently hosted a group of Tutsi survivors
of the Rwandan genocide for an eight-day seminar on the Holocaust,
the shaping of remembrance and the return to life.
The seminar took place in partnership with Nyamirambo, a Tutsi NGO
based in Belgium and Rwanda, headed by Yolande Mukagasana, and the
French Memorial of the Shoah Organization (CDJC). The seminar included
lectures about the Holocaust and the preservation of memory, talks
with the staff of the International School for Holocaust Studies,
meetings with Holocaust survivors, tours around the country, and
more. Among the participants from Rwanda were spiritual and social
leaders, judges, journalists, academics and parliamentarians – all
Tutsi survivors of the genocide that took place in Rwanda a decade
ago, and all of whom are active in commemorating the victims of the
massacre as well as in the rehabilitation of Rwandan society.
The seminar was initiated by Dr. Joel Kotek of the CDJC and by author Yolande Mukagasana, herself
a survivor of the Rwandan massacre. She lives today in the West,
where she wrote her autobiography, which was published in French in
1997 and recently translated into Hebrew. After the massacre, she
began to take an interest in the Holocaust. She visited Auschwitz
and met with Holocaust survivors in Europe.
Mukagasana said meeting with Jewish Holocaust survivors helped her
above all to cope with the trauma she experienced. Her request to
hold the seminar at Yad Vashem came from the desire to learn how the
Jewish people deals with commemoration and Holocaust remembrance.
Participants learned firsthand about the educational activities
carried out at Yad Vashem as well as different approaches to
Holocaust remembrance. Tutsi survivors told how most of the
survivors in their country are ashamed to speak out about their
experiences, especially women who were raped by Hutu men. Yad Vashem staff explained that Holocaust survivors also did not receive an attentive ear in the early years, but they turned their efforts into rebuilding their lives and creative activities, and only later on were they able to tell their stories.
Yad Vashem staff encouraged the Tutsis to document the horrors they
went through in every way possible, and not allow survivors to be
silenced. One of the main difficulties encountered by the Tutsis is
that they still live among their neighbors, the Hutus, some of whom
killed the Tutsis’ loved ones with their own hands.
During the seminar, a special session was held in cooperation with
the Open University called: ‘The Genocide in Rwanda - Have We
Learned Anything from the Holocaust?’ The session included testimony
from a Tutsi survivor, and a clip from the French film, “Kill Them
All.” Participating in the session were: Chairman of the Yad Vashem
Directorate, Avner Shalev; Academic Advisor to Yad Vashem Prof. Yehuda Bauer; Director of Nyamirambo, Yolande Mukagasana; and Prof.
Benjamin Neuberger and Prof. Yair Oron of the Open University.
The highlight of the seminar was, without a shadow of a doubt, the
emotional encounter between participants and Holocaust survivors. The
Rwandans expected to get answers to difficult questions such as “Why
did I remain alive?” and “What is the point in living at all?” Jean Busco Owimana, 24, who lost his entire family in the massacre, told
Ha’aretz newspaper how, with great emotion, he asked Eliezer
Sharon, a Holocaust survivor 50 years his senior, if he ever
succeeded in freeing himself from the trauma. “You will have to
fight against it all the time, for the rest your life,” was his
answer.
Dr. Alan Michel, coordinator of the seminar, summed up the meeting:
“The seminar was unique and exciting. Meeting with Tutsi survivors
was for Yad Vashem and the wider community an opportunity to learn
more and know more about what happened in Rwanda. The highlight of
the seminar was, of course, the meeting between Holocaust survivors
and seminar participants. The participants turned to Yad Vashem
during the seminar to receive help from the vast experience that Yad
Vashem has in the fields of remembrance and documenting evidence of
genocide.
“The International School for Holocaust Studies plans to live up to
these expectations and answer the many requests arising from the
seminar. Cooperation with Tutsi survivors has already begun, and it
will deepen further in the foreseeable future.”
(Taken from the Yad Vashem website.)
In addition, seminars were
coordinated at the International School for teachers and educators
from the following countries in 2005:
March: Hungary, Russia
April: Belgium
June: England, Lithuania
July: Austria, Croatia
August: Germany
September: Italy, Poland, Russia
November: Czech Republic, Hungary, Tutsi survivors, Poland, Austria,
Romania
December: Germany
2. Educational Unit
“But the Story Didn’t End That Way” -
Newly Revised German Edition: An educational unit on
Kristallnacht and the persecution of German Jewry in the
1930s. Despite their
patriotism and contribution to their country, German Jews were
targeted for persecution from the beginning of Nazi rule in 1933.
State laws stripped them of all civil rights and means of
employment. The Kristallnacht pogrom of 1938 - ‘the night of the
broken glass’ - marked the apex of the pre-war persecution of German
Jewry.
This newly revised unit contains eighteen
posters depicting German-Jewish life in the 1920s up to the
Kristallnacht pogrom of 1938, a teacher’s handbook with testimonies
and suggestions for class activities, and a DVD featuring oral
testimonies of Jews who lived through Kristallnacht.
The unit is also available in English, Hebrew,
Spanish and French.
3. Special Outreach Program for
Students Studying in Ministry of Industry, Trade and Labor Schools
In a workshop entitled “The Holocaust
and Me”, one young man said, “the Holocaust isn’t mine, it’s only
for those from Ashkenazi descent”. Another student claimed he was
“sick of learning about the Holocaust”.
Although we grappled with a number of serious
challenges in designing this special program for students studying
in Ministry of Industry, Trade and Labor schools, today approximately
three thousand 11th graders participate in the program, including
500 from the Arab sector. These students, who have not been able to
integrate into standard educational frameworks, often come from
disadvantaged backgrounds. They attend schools run by the Ministry of
Industry, Trade and Labor, combining regular studies with a
practicum.
The staff of the International School for
Holocaust Studies views this four-day program as a unique
opportunity to promote Holocaust consciousness among many students
who lack a strong background in world history. The program requires
the adaptation of existing programs as well as special training for
the guides, so as to impart meaningful educational and emotional
insights.
The main objective of this program is to
introduce youth to the Holocaust and its implications for humanity
in general and for Israeli society in particular. An additional objective is to
impart the pupils with historical knowledge, encouraging them to ask
questions regarding human nature, Israeli society and its struggle
with personal and collective memory, as well as human dilemmas and
the tragedy of the period.
At the conclusion of a seminar, one
student said, “Now I have lots of questions. I’ll never fully
understand the disaster or be able to answer all the questions.
However after all these meetings it’s clear to me that the Holocaust
can’t be denied, and that we have to learn the lessons for the
future to prevent this from ever happening again to us or to anyone
else.”
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