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The Holocaust in curricula discusses the ways in which the Holocaust is presented in secondary school level history and social studies curricula worldwide. It is a key component of education about the Holocaust. The status of the Holocaust in curricula varies considerably worldwide. A leading publication on the subject, The International status of education about the Holocaust: a global mapping of textbooks and curricula, reveals four main categories of curricula in respect of the Holocaust: Direct Reference, Partial Reference, Context Only, and No Reference. [1]
"Direct reference" refers to countries whose curricula stipulate teaching about the Holocaust by using the term ‘Holocaust’ or ‘Shoah’, or by using alternative terminologies such as ‘genocide against the Jews’, or ‘Nazi persecution of minorities’:
"Partial reference" refers to countries whose curricula stipulate teaching about the Holocaust indirectly to achieve a learning aim which is not primarily the history of the Holocaust (concerning responses to the Holocaust outside Europe, for example) or to illustrate a topic other than the Holocaust (where the Holocaust is mentioned as one among other aspects of human rights education, for example). Most commonly, the Holocaust is named in the curriculum as a means to other ends, such that its historical meaning and complexity are not addressed. For example, in Argentina, Belize, Colombia, Ecuador, Mexico and Slovenia, the Holocaust appears as an example of violations of human rights, and is sometimes relegated to footnotes. Similarly, in the USA (Maryland), pupils are required to ‘explain the events that led to the beginning of the Second World War’, and to ‘investigate the response of the United States government to the discovery of the Holocaust and immigration policies with respect to refugees’; in Canada (Prince Edward Island and Nova Scotia), pupils are required only to study responses to the Holocaust in Canada. [1]
"Context only" refers to countries whose curricula refer to the Second World War or to National Socialism, without referring explicitly to the Holocaust:
"No reference" is when neither the Holocaust as a term and event nor its context is mentioned in the curriculum. It is frequently the case in this category that curricula do not stipulate specific content for history teaching, but rather simply discuss the necessity and purpose of the school subjects of history or social studies and the teaching methods to be used. This is the case in Brunei Darussalam, Dominica, Fiji, Iceland and Thailand. [1]
Several curricula do not entirely conform to any recognizable pattern and therefore require further explanation. These may be categorized as follows. [1]
One example is Switzerland, where education about the Holocaust is obligatory but not contained in the curricula of all regions and cantons because, as Davis and Rubinstein-Avila suggest, no constraints on how this event should be taught are imposed in the face of a complex national story; in Switzerland, for example, Jews were partially accepted as refugees, partly turned away at the border, and the banks collaborated with the Nazi regime. Here, a ‘self-reflexive approach’ is taken to teaching about the Holocaust. [3] The Brazilian Ministry of Education issues national guidelines which stipulate teaching about the Holocaust. However, these guidelines are not binding and function only as recommendations whose content can be adapted and extended locally. Curricula for the primary school level at age nine in Brazil are provided on a municipal level, whereas the provincial states determine curricula content for the secondary school level, while schools have the final decision over what is actually taught in classrooms. Following attacks on synagogues and Jewish cemeteries, Porto Alegre was the first municipality to introduce compulsory education about the Holocaust for all public schools in 2010. [4] [5] [1]
The history curriculum of 2003 in Finland prescribes the teaching of ‘European extremist movements, the crisis of democracy and persecution of people [in] different countries; the Second World War and its consequences’, and thus contains only the context but no direct reference to the Holocaust. However, amendments made by the Ministry of Education in 2010 have led to a shift towards a more explicit stipulation of teaching about the Holocaust in the context of human rights education. In the section concerning ethics for school years seven to nine, the curriculum stipulates the teaching of ‘human rights violations such as the Holocaust’; in the section devoted to history, ‘human rights, human rights violations such as genocide, the Holocaust, and persecution of people in different countries’. [6] Likewise, in the section concerning ethics, the curriculum for upper secondary school levels stipulates teaching about ‘human rights, human rights conventions and their history, human rights violations such as the Holocaust’, and in the section on history, ‘human rights, genocide, the Holocaust and persecution of people in different countries’. [7] This testifies to a shift towards contextualized teaching about the Holocaust, with only one section of the upper-level history curriculum stipulating direct education about the history of the Holocaust. [1]
Mentions of the Holocaust are frequently not accompanied by clear references to groups of victims (examples in this context are Australia, Bulgaria, Canada (Alberta), Ethiopia, Italy, Mexico and USA (Texas)). In some curricula, Jews are the only group of victims named (the curricula of the Walloon and German authorities in Belgium, Côte d’Ivoire, Germany (Bavaria), Hungary and Panama); others point out the connection of the Holocaust to antisemitism [Albania, Canada (Ontario), Ireland, Liechtenstein, Namibia, Portugal and Spain], or make explicit mention of several groups of victims such as Sinti and Roma (Costa Rica, Ecuador, France, South Africa, Trinidad and Tobago and USA (California)), homosexuals (South Africa, Trinidad and Tobago, and the US (California)), political opponents (South Africa and the German Land of Lower Saxony) and further groups subsumed under ‘other minorities’ (Germany (Lower Saxony and North Rhine-Westphalia), Namibia, Singapore and Swaziland) or summarized as ‘others who failed to meet the Aryan ideal’ (California). [1]
Côte d’Ivoire does not include the Holocaust as part of the core curriculum, but makes explicit reference to it in an example syllabus in the appendix to the curriculum. [1]
Curriculum outside classrooms involves learning outside the school in different contexts including: museum exhibitions, libraries, cultural events, television, and sites of collective memory. For example, Museums and Memorials can be particularly important spaces for education because they provide a learning experience, as well as space for commemoration and reflection. [8] Besides their primary remembrance dimension, many memorial museums, whether situated on historic sites of persecution or not, have functions that relate to research and documentation, culture and advocacy and education. [9]
The Holocaust in textbooks discusses the ways in which the Holocaust is conceptualized and narrated in textbooks. Textbooks can be analyzed focusing in particular on the temporal and spatial scales, protagonists, interpretative paradigms, narrative techniques, didactic methods and national idiosyncrasies with and within which the Holocaust is conveyed. Curricula and textbooks, in particular those designed for history teaching, provide both a space for the formation of a condensed canon of knowledge which is considered to be relevant to a specific society, and a means by which claims to social legitimacy may be made. The study of curricula and textbooks enables the reconstruction of patterns of perception and interpretation, or the standards and values which hold sway at any given time. Moreover, they offer insights into the variety of ways in which national identities are conceived of and constructed. [1]
Curricula and textbooks provide reasonably reliable points of reference for educators. The complexity of the Holocaust and the sensitivity towards the social and political consequences of this event which continues to be felt in the present day mean that teachers are often uncertain about how they should teach the Holocaust. As a result, curricula and in particular textbooks are held by educators to provide secure sources of information and of methods to which teachers refer on the assumption that they provide accurate content and reliable didactic and methodological guidelines, which have been compiled by experienced historians, educational experts and authors. [1]
Holocaust denial is the act of denying the Nazi genocide of Jews in the Holocaust. Holocaust deniers make one or more of the following false statements:
The Romani genocide or the Romani Holocaust—also known as the Porajmos, the Pharrajimos, and the Samudaripen —was the effort by Nazi Germany and its World War II allies to commit ethnic cleansing and eventually genocide against Europe's Romani people.
Names of the Holocaust vary based on context. "The Holocaust" is the name commonly applied in English since the mid-1940s to the systematic extermination of 6 million Jews by Nazi Germany during World War II. The term is also used more broadly to include the Nazis' systematic murder of millions of people in other groups they determined were "untermensch" or "subhuman," which included primarily the Jews and the Slavs, the former having allegedly infected the latter, including ethnic Poles, the Serbs, Russians, the Czechs and others.
Bias in education refers to real or perceived bias in the educational system.
International Holocaust Remembrance Day is an international memorial day on 27 January commemorating the tragedy of the Holocaust that occurred during the Second World War. It commemorates the genocide that resulted in the deaths of 6 million Jews and 11 million others, by the Nazi regime and its collaborators. It was designated by the United Nations General Assembly resolution 60/7 on 1 November 2005 during the 42nd plenary session. The resolution came after a special session was held earlier that year on 24 January 2005 during which the United Nations General Assembly marked the 60th anniversary of the liberation of the Nazi concentration camps and the end of the Holocaust.
The Dallas Holocaust and Human Rights Museum is a history education museum in Dallas, Texas in the West End Historic District at the southeast corner of N. Houston Street and Ross Avenue. Its mission is to teach the history of the Holocaust and advance human rights to combat prejudice, hatred, and indifference. It features climate-controlled archives and a research library to expand education.
United Nations General Assembly resolution 60/7 on Holocaust remembrance called for the establishment of a programme of outreach on the subject of the "Holocaust and the United Nations" and measures to mobilize civil society for Holocaust remembrance and education, in order to help to prevent future acts of genocide. Since its establishment by the Department of Public Information in January 2006, the Holocaust and the United Nations Outreach Programme has developed an international network of civil society groups and a multi-faceted programme that includes: innovative online educational products, youth outreach, DVDs, seminars and training programmes, a film series, book signings, a permanent exhibit at United Nations Headquarters in New York City, and the annual worldwide observance of the International Day of Commemoration in memory of the victims of the Holocaust.
The Northern Transylvania Holocaust Memorial Museum is located in Șimleu Silvaniei, Romania and was opened September 11, 2005. The museum is operated and maintained by the Jewish Architectural Heritage Foundation of New York and Asociata Memoralia Hebraica Nuşfalău - a Romanian NGO, with the support of the Claims Conference, Elie Wiesel National Institute for Studying the Holocaust in Romania, among other philanthropic and pedagogical partners.
The Hamas–UNRWA Holocaust dispute erupted on 31 August 2009 following a perception in the Gaza Strip that the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) planned to include a course on human rights that speaks about the Holocaust in the eighth-grade curriculum of preparatory schools it runs in the territory. Militant Islamic movement Hamas, which controls the Gaza Strip, protested, calling the Holocaust "a lie made up by the Zionists" and demanding the removal of the offending content from the curriculum. Some officials of the United Nations agency initially responded by denying that it teaches the subject of the Holocaust in its schools or that it plans to teach it in its new curriculum. This denial drew criticism from various groups and individuals.
A number of countries maintain laws requiring the presentation of information concerning actions of the government of Germany regarding Jews in its territory during the period of that government's control by the National Socialist (Nazi) German Worker's Party from 1933 to 1945, commonly referred to as the Holocaust. In the United States, laws of this kind are maintained by individual states and typically specify curriculum content and the ages of the pupils to which various portions of the curricula are to be presented.
Holocaust studies is a scholarly discipline that encompasses the historical research and study of the Holocaust. Institutions dedicated to Holocaust research investigate the multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary aspects of Holocaust methodology, demography, sociology, and psychology. It also covers the study of Nazi Germany, World War II, Jewish history, religion, Christian-Jewish relations, Holocaust theology, ethics, social responsibility, and genocide on a global scale. Exploring trauma, memories and testimonies of the experiences of Holocaust survivors, human rights, international relations, Jewish life, Judaism, and Jewish identity in the post-Holocaust world are also covered in this type of research.
The Documentation and Cultural Centre of German Sinti and Roma was established in Heidelberg, Germany, in the early 1990s, as a memorial to Sinti and Roma people who were killed by the National Socialists Party. After several years of extension work collecting stories from the victims, conducting research, and conversion, the building complex was ceremonially opened to the public on 16 March 1997, and was supported by the attendance of many Roma and Sinti survivors. It is the world's first permanent exhibition on the genocide perpetrated upon the Sinti and Roma by the Nazis. The documentation Centre has three levels and covers an area of almost 700 square meters, and traces the history and stories of the persecution of the Sinti and Roma under National Socialism. The institution is overseen by Central Council of German Sinti and Roma, supported by the city of Heidelberg, and is the beneficiary of special funds from the German Federal Government and the land of Baden-Württemberg.
The Cape Town Holocaust & Genocide Centre began as Africa's first Holocaust centre founded in 1999. The Centre works towards creating a more caring and just society in which human rights and diversity are respected and valued. Through exhibitions, events and workshops, they endeavour to commemorate the victims and survivors of the Nazi regime and the numerous genocides that happened before and since the Holocaust.
The Holocaust in Luxembourg refers to the systematic persecution, expulsion and murder of Jews in Luxembourg after its occupation and later annexation by Nazi Germany. It is generally believed that the Jewish population of Luxembourg had numbered around 3,500 before the war although many fled into France at the time of the German invasion of 10 May 1940 or in the early months of the occupation. Around 1,000 to 2,500 were murdered during the Holocaust after being deported to ghettos and extermination camps in Eastern Europe.
The Center for Contemporary Jewish Documentation is an independent French organization founded by Isaac Schneersohn in 1943 in the town of Grenoble, France during the Second World War to preserve the evidence of Nazi war crimes for future generations. After the Liberation, the center was moved to Paris in 1944 where it remains today.
The Holocaust is conceptualized and narrated in textbooks worldwide in a variety of approaches to treating temporal and spatial scales, protagonists, interpretative paradigms, narrative techniques, didactic methods and national idiosyncrasies with and within which the Holocaust. There exist convergent trends or internationally shared narrative templates, and divergent trends or narrative idiosyncrasies, which generally establish links between the Holocaust and local events. Textbooks in most countries focus most closely, via photographs and legal documentation, on the perpetrators’ point of view. This is a key component of education about the Holocaust.
Education sector responses to LGBT violence addresses the ways in which education systems work to create safe learning environments for LGBT students. Overall, education sector responses tend to focus on homophobia and violence linked to sexual orientation and gender identity/expression, and less on transphobia. Most responses focus in some way on diverse expressions of gender and support students to understand that gender may be expressed in a different way from binary models. Responses vary greatly in their scope ; duration ; and level of support that they enjoy.
Genocide education refers to education about patterns and trends in the phenomenon of genocide and/or about the causes, nature and impact of particular instances of genocide.
Education about the Holocaust or Holocaust education refers to efforts, in formal and non-formal settings, to teach about the Holocaust. Teaching and Learning about the Holocaust addresses didactics and learning, under the larger umbrella of education about the Holocaust, which also comprises curricula and textbooks studies. The expression "Teaching and Learning about the Holocaust" is used by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance.
"Never again" is a phrase or slogan which is associated with the Holocaust and other genocides. The phrase may originate from a 1927 poem by Yitzhak Lamdan which stated "Never again shall Masada fall!" In the context of genocide, the slogan was used by liberated prisoners at Buchenwald concentration camp to express anti-fascist sentiment. The exact meaning of the phrase is debated, including whether it should be used as a particularistic command to avert a second Holocaust of Jews or whether it is a universalist injunction to prevent all forms of genocide. It was adopted as a slogan by Meir Kahane's Jewish Defense League and used to justify acts of terrorism against perceived enemies of Jews.