The Russian Research and Educational Holocaust Center was founded in 1992 in Moscow and has since then been working on awareness raising of the Holocaust in the Russian society. It is the only non-governmental organization in the Russian Federation, devoted to the study of the life of Soviet Jews during the Great Patriotic War.
The main tasks of the Center comprise historical research, conducting memorial services, the incorporation of the Holocaust topic into the curricula of secondary schools and universities, promoting the formation of opinions as well as interviews with contemporary witnesses. The Center, furthermore, organizes regular exhibitions.
The Holocaust Center addressed itself to inform the Russian public about the genocide of Jews. The foundation of this goal is the specialist library, where a large number of publications relating to the Holocaust in the former USSR are available. Besides, the library includes a video collection and an archive for the preservation of the personal belongings of former ghetto prisoners, participants in the Great Patriotic War and members of the Resistance. It also offers its own seminar room with a permanent documentary exhibition. Furthermore, temporary exhibitions are also held from time to time.
The most important target group for the Centers educational programs are teachers. New projects are constantly being developed and implemented in order to enable teachers to participate in specific courses and pass their newly gained knowledge to their students. This initiative intends to counteract anti-Semitism and to raise awareness for the events of the past through education.
Meetings of the discussion group "Unknown Holocaust", the Youth Center and the Association of the Righteous Among the Nations are held at the Center on a monthly basis. Leading world experts regularly give lectures and hold presentations such as Professor Michael Berenbaum, one of the founders of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, the former director of the Yad Vashem Museum Izhak Arad, Paul Levin and Stephane Bruhfeld (Sweden), the authors of the book Tell Your Children About It, and Shimon Samuels, director of the European Bureau of the Simon Wiesenthal Center. Every year, the Center organizes evening ceremonies commemorating the victims of the Holocaust and the heroes of the Resistance. Government leaders also participate in these events, which evokes a strong response from the society and the media. [1]
The Center is under the direction of Alla Gerber, a writer and journalist and former member of the State Duma, who is currently president of the foundation and co-chairman of the center, and co-chairman Ilya Altman, who is a well-known historian and archivist. Henri Reznik, a famous Russian lawyer, is chairman of the board, which includes other personalities form the fields of economy, science, culture and politics.
The network of foreign partners constitutes a key element for the work of the Holocaust Center, especially as a research and educational institution. The Center works in close cooperation with several foreign organizations:
Apart from an intensive collaboration with Yad Vashem, which allowed the realization of several seminars and educational programs, the Center cooperates with the Simon Wiesenthal Center. Hereby the publication of the book "Antisemitism: The Generic Hatred" was realized. Additionally, the Center has close ties with the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Washington D.C., where Russian teachers annually take part in educational seminars. Other important partners are the Anne Frank Foundation and the University of Gothenburg (Sweden). Moreover, the Center participates in important international conferences such as the Stockholm Forum. Many of its partner institutions are based in German speaking countries, such as the House of the Wannsee Conference, where seminars with Russian and Belarusian teachers regularly take place. Another achievement is the book "Victims of Hate" by Ilya Altman which is the result of the successful cooperation with Hamburg Institute for Social Sciences. Apart from the close ties with different museums, such as the Jewish Museum Berlin, the German-Russian Museum Berlin-Karlshorst and the Jewish Museum Frankfurt (where seminars for teachers are regularly conducted), the Holocaust Center cooperates with the Ruprecht-Karls-University Heidelberg. For many years the Center has successfully been working together with Germany-based Action Reconciliation Service for Peace. Within the framework of this cooperation, every year one young volunteer from ARSP works in the Center in Moscow. Since the late nineties, also young Austrians fulfill their compulsory paid community service in the Center. This was, at first, a cooperation with "Verein GEDENKDIENST", but since 2010, the cooperation only involves volunteers of the Austrian Service Abroad. All three organizations pursue the goal of preserving the memory of the victims of National socialism also among the younger generations. Moreover, the Holocaust Center is supported by numerous German, English, Israeli and other international foundations.
Yad Vashem is Israel's official memorial to the victims of the Holocaust. It is dedicated to preserving the memory of the dead; honoring Jews who fought against their Nazi oppressors and Gentiles who selflessly aided Jews in need; and researching the phenomenon of the Holocaust in particular and genocide in general, with the aim of avoiding such events in the future.
The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM) is the United States' official memorial to the Holocaust. Adjacent to the National Mall in Washington, D.C., the USHMM provides for the documentation, study, and interpretation of Holocaust history. It is dedicated to helping leaders and citizens of the world confront hatred, prevent genocide, promote human dignity, and strengthen democracy.
This is a selected bibliography and other resources for The Holocaust, including prominent primary sources, historical studies, notable survivor accounts and autobiographies, as well as other documentation and further hypotheses.
Gedenkdienst is the concept of facing and taking responsibility for the darkest chapters of one's own country's history while ideally being financially supported by one's own country's government to do so. Founded in Austria in 1992 by Dr. Andreas Maislinger the Gedenkdienst is an alternative to Austria's compulsory national military service as well as a volunteering platform for Austrians to work in Holocaust-related institutions around the world with governmental financial support. In Austria it is also referred to as Austrian Holocaust Memorial Service provided by the Austrian Service Abroad. The Austrian Gedenkdienst serves the remembrance of the crimes of Nazism and commemorates its victims.
The Austrian Service Abroad is a non-profit organization founded by Dr. Andreas Maislinger in 1998 sending young Austrians to work in partner institutions worldwide serving Holocaust commemoration in form of the Gedenkdienst, supporting vulnerable social groups and sustainability initiatives in form of the Austrian Social Service and realizing projects of peace within the framework of the Austrian Peace Service. Its services aim at the permanence of life on earth. The Austrian Service Abroad carries and promotes the idea of the House of Responsibility for the birthplace of Adolf Hitler in Braunau am Inn. The Austrian Service Abroad is the issuer of the annually conferred Austrian Holocaust Memorial Award. The program is funded by the Austrian government.
International Holocaust Remembrance Day is an international memorial day on 27 January that commemorates the victims of the Holocaust, the genocide of European Jews by Nazi Germany between 1941 and 1945. 27 January was chosen to commemorate the date that Auschwitz concentration camp was liberated by the Red Army in 1945.
The Ghetto Fighters' House, full name, Itzhak Katzenelson Holocaust and Jewish Resistance Heritage Museum, Documentation and Study Center, was founded in 1949 by members of Kibbutz Lohamei Hagetaot, a community of Holocaust survivors, among them fighters of the ghetto undergrounds and partisan units. The museum is named after Itzhak Katzenelson, a Jewish poet who died at Auschwitz.
Holocaust survivors are people who survived the Holocaust, defined as the persecution and attempted annihilation of the Jews by Nazi Germany and its allies before and during World War II in Europe and North Africa. There is no universally accepted definition of the term, and it has been applied variously to Jews who survived the war in German-occupied Europe or other Axis territories, as well as to those who fled to Allied and neutral countries before or during the war. In some cases, non-Jews who also experienced collective persecution under the Nazi regime are also considered Holocaust survivors. The definition has evolved over time.
The Austrian Holocaust Memorial Award (AHMA) was founded by the Austrian Service Abroad in 2006.
The Action Reconciliation Service for Peace is a German peace organization founded to confront the legacy of Nazism.
The Illinois Holocaust Museum and Education Center is a museum located in Skokie, Illinois, near Chicago.
The World Holocaust Forum is a series of events aimed at preserving the memory of the Holocaust. It is also known as the "Let My People Live!" Forum.
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.
Ilya Alexandrovich Altman is a Russian historian and founder and co-chairman of the Russian Research and Educational Holocaust Center in Moscow. He is also author of over 300 publications on the history of the Holocaust and the Eastern Front, many of which have been published in the United States, Israel and Western Europe.
The Vienna Wiesenthal Institute for Holocaust Studies (VWI) is a research centre dedicated to the research and documentation of and education on all aspects of antisemitism, racism and the Holocaust, including its emergence and aftermath. It was designed by Simon Wiesenthal as well as international and Austrian researchers. The institute is located in Vienna, Austria. It is financed by the City of Vienna and the Austrian Federal Ministry of Education, Science and Research.
The International Youth Meeting Center in Oświęcim/Auschwitz is an educational institution whose campus lies between the center of the Polish city of Oświęcim and the former German concentration camp of Auschwitz. More than one million persons, mostly Jewish and Polish, were murdered at Auschwitz during the Second World War (1939–1945). Proposed in 1971, the center was opened in 1986 following years of planning, negotiations, and fundraising. It seeks to "develop the understanding of National Socialism and its consequences, particularly among young Germans, through dialogue and encounter between people of different origins", and is particularly engaged with Germans and Poles, Christians and Jews. In 2010, the Center hosted more than 17,000 overnight stays by youth groups participating in its programs. Many young Germans and Austrians have held year-long voluntary positions at the Center that satisfy their civilian service (Zivildienst) responsibility. One of these, Robert Thalheim, wrote and directed the German-language dramatic film And Along Come Tourists (2007) that features the center and its activities.
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.
Beit Terezin or Beit Theresienstadt is a research and educational institution that opened in 1975 in Kibbutz Givat Haim (Ihud), a museum and a place of remembrance of the victims of Nazi Germany persecution at the Theresienstadt concentration camp.
Naomi Kramer is a Canadian curator and president of the Holocaust Education and Genocide Prevention Foundation.