On Holocaust Education - NY Times Op-Ed

On Holocaust Education

I.H.T. Op-Ed Contributor
By ALEKSANDER KWASNIEWSKI
Published: June 28, 2010

In an article on June 18, Kofi Annan, the former secretary general of the United Nations, wrote that the teaching of the Holocaust should focus more on preventing ethnic conflict and genocide.

Before questioning the value of Holocaust education,one should first address its goals:

What, exactly, are we trying to achieve in teaching about the Holocaust? Is it realistic to expect that the study of the Holocaust will diminish human rights abuses and racism, and instead nurture democracy and tolerance? Will mixing the narrative of the Holocaust with other types of atrocities really encourage better human behavior?

Accumulated experience from the field has proven that there are no short cuts. A trip to Auschwitz does not suddenly turn visitors into noble humanitarians. An hour’s lesson on the Holocaust will certainly not prevent the next Rwanda or Darfur.

Some of Kofi Annan’s thoughts, along with those of others, were discussed and debated at a recent Holocaust educators’ conference in which I also participated. Hundreds of educators and decision makers from around the world gathered at Yad Vashem in Jerusalem to grapple with these very questions and challenges.

The younger generations commonly view the Holocaust with indifference. Born in the early 1990s, they tend to view World War II as irrelevant to their everyday lives. Our job is to demonstrate how historical events, including the Holocaust, are unique opportunities to understand the world today. We must show that Holocaust education is a vital tool to glean from the past messages for today.

Superficial Holocaust education leaves no lasting impact. It will not overcome forces of racism and intolerance, or solve enduring social problems. Effective Holocaust education, focusing on the human story within the facts of history, does, however, foster greater understanding of the social processes that can lead to genocide.

Genuine, deep, long-term study of the Holocaust has the power to sensitize people, raise awareness of the other, help identify the preliminary warning signs of genocide, and put the brakes in place.

The Holocaust was the most extreme case of genocide. Indeed, because all the elements are present in the Holocaust — including, but not only: a murderous ideology, technological and bureaucratic means, deligitimization, classification, dispossession and mass murder — it illustrates processes that help us identify the potential for genocide.

Yet we must not delude ourselves: Holocaust education is a relatively recent phenomenon, and the number of primary and secondary school students around the world actually engaged in it is still relatively limited.

In Poland, as in much of Europe, the Holocaust is, and must be, part of our curriculum, present in the public discourse, and at the heart of 20th century European history.

It is the starting point from which Europeans need to address the breakdown of universal values that allowed such a cataclysmic event to occur, and from which we must seek the answers as to how to ensure that such a breakdown can never again happen.

Without being anchored in the defining context of the Holocaust, haphazard exposure to a mélange of disparate conflicts, ethnic cleansings and other atrocities serves only to blur understanding and learning.

While the Holocaust was a unique event, targeting the Jews in particular, its nature lends it universal meaning. Taking place in the heart of civilized Europe in the 20th century, the Holocaust shook the very foundations of our shared existence. Paradoxically, its study contains and provides the very tools for rebuilding that foundation.

Mr. Annan urges us to rethink “traditional” Holocaust education, and indeed, experts at Yad Vashem and other institutions are constantly exploring different avenues in this field. Dedicated educators use all the tools at their disposal to create multidisciplinary, country-specific and age-appropriate Holocaust studies for the long term. They are honing an educational model that adds layers of understanding to our ability to cultivate human rights and tolerance in society and adds depth to our ability to shape a brighter future.


Aleksander Kwasniewski was the president of Poland from 1995 to 2005.

New Museum on Vashon Honors Romani Culture

Morgan Ahern, a long-time supporter of the Holocaust Center and recent addition to the Holocaust Center's Speakers Bureau, is an outspoken voice for Romani culture and rights around the world. Check out her blog at http://lolodiklo.blogspot.com/.

Mobile museum on Vashon honors Romani culture
By ELIZABETH SHEPHERD
Vashon-Maury Island Beachcomber Arts Editor
Jul 08 2010, 4:12 PM · UPDATED

Vashon has a new museum, but it doesn’t look like most other museums. For one thing, it’s on wheels.

The Romani Traveling Museum and Education Center is tucked inside a 14-foot, wood-paneled 1967 travel trailer parked in Burton. Inside is a treasure trove of items that speaks to the rich culture of the Romani people, an ethnic group commonly referred to as Gypsies.
Colorful scarves are draped across the ceiling, and vibrant fabrics cover the sofas.Captivating photographs of Romani people from all over the world cover almost every inch of wall space. A small library of books, DVDs and music CDs detailing Gypsy life fill the remaining nooks and crannies.

But the museum is not only a celebration of a lively and exotic culture. It also aims to tell a complex and often heartbreaking story that began almost 1,000 years ago, when the Romani people began to migrate to Europe from India, facing discrimination and persecution wherever they moved.

Orchestrating this remarkable display is Morgan Ahern, an Islander who has devoted much of her life to working as an advocate and documentarian for the Romani people. A tall, striking woman, she bears the distinctive look of her heritage — a warm olive complexion and huge brown eyes characteristic of many Romani people...Read Article

New Resources in the Library

New resources availble to borrow from the Holocaust Center's library. For more information, or to borrow books, please email Janna at admin@wsherc.org.

Remember - if you want to purchase the book from Amazon.com, please first go to www.wsherc.org and enter the title or key word into the Amazon search box on the homepage. Amazon will donate a small percentage of your purchase to the Holocaust Center.

A Partisan from Vilna. By Rachel Margolis. 2010.
One of the last surviving partisans of Vilna, Rachel Margolis has written a vivid and compelling accoung of the murder of Lithuania's Jews, and of the battle for survival and dignity amongst those who escaped.

Between the Two Rivers: A Story of the Armenian Genocide. By Aida Kouyoumjian. 2010.
Ms. Kouyoumjian is a member of the Holocaust Center Speakers Bureau. In this recently published book, she shares the story of her mother, Mannig, a survivor of the Armenian genocide.

Beyond the Never Agains. Produced by the Swedish Government. 2005.
In this book we meet 18 men and women, experienced and knowledgeable experts, all of whom participated in at least one of the Stockholm International Forum (SIF) conferences. We asked their honest opinion about developments on some of the most burning issues for the future. The conferences within the series focused on: The Holocaust - Education, Remembrance, and Research (2000); Combating Intolerance (2001); Truth, Justice and Reconciliation (2002); Preventing Genocide (2004).

Nations Have the Right to Kill: Hitler, the Holocaust and War. By Richard A. Koenigsberg. 2009.

Wall of Resistance - Class Project

Wall of Resistance

Created by students in John Boselman's Humanities class at High Tech High School, in Chula Vista, California. Mr. Bosselman was one of more than 50 teachers participating in the Holocaust Center's pilot project for the "Everyday Objects: Artifacts from Washington State Holocaust Survivors" poster series and curriculum. These materials helped to inform his students.

What is the cost of war to humanity and to the human body?
This project was exhibited at Festival del Sol on March 25, 2010

In 1961 the Soviet Union, in Eastern Germany, constructed a wall that would divide the world into two. In the east, communism and the Soviet Union, while the west “democracy” and the United States battled throughout this Cold War. This wall became the symbol of the division between these two countries and their ideology that ultimately brought the world the closest it has ever been to annihilation.

We asked our students to create their own Wall, focusing on the conflicts of the 20th and 21st century. Each panel of the wall is an answer to their own essential questions and their own perspective on the cost of the war, both to society and to us biologically as humans. It is our hope that this Wall of Resistance is a symbol of how close humanity has come to its annihilation, whether that be of the human race as a whole, the individual human body, or even the individual human cell.

One of the student art pieces, entitled "Work Sets You Free," focuses on World War II and the Holocaust. Mr. Bosselman describes it:
On the left side of the project is a creative representation of World War II the Home Front in America and the use of propaganda, especially by Walt Disney. The right side of the project is the students' depiction of the Holocaust. You can see the contrast between the two sides, Donald Duck on one side, and the silhouette of a human on the other.

To see this piece and others, please see the Wall of Resistance.

Special thanks to John Bosselman for sharing his project and students' work.

Hearing a survivor in Budapest

After so many years of studying and learning about the Holocaust, on Sunday we learned some interesting perspectives about the Holocaust in Hungary from scholar, Laszlo Csosz. As it turns out, each country was so different in what happened to Jewish populations. The Hungarian deportations of 1944 started in the countryside--but did not continue with total deportation of the Jews of Budapest. About 70,000 of them remained in two different ghettos in the city and were liberated by the Russians. The tradgedy of the 1/2 million Hungarian Jews who were being deported to Auschwitz as the Allies were driving west always makes the losses of the Holocaust seem even more tragic and appalling. Add to this that we learned that students today are not required to learn about the Holocaust and do not hear the many survivors who do live here in Budapest. It made out presentation by a local survivor very poignant as she travels to Germany to speak to schools but does not speak in Hungary. Even so, the sun was shining and we were priviledged to hear Eva's story.

Laurie Warshal Cohen

See a photo of Eva of with the group at the Holocaust Center in Budapest on our facebook page.

Photos from Budapest - day 1

New photos on facebook today from our visit to Castle Hill in Budapest, the labyrinth of caves under the hill, archictecture in Pest, and more...

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=184847&id=140140310737&saved#!/album.php?aid=184847&id=140140310737

Arrived in Budapest!

Check out our photos on the Holocaust Center's Facebook Page -

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=184847&id=140140310737&saved#!/album.php?aid=184847&id=140140310737

You don't have to be signed into facebook to see them. Or better yet, sign into facebook and become a fan of the Holocaust Center's page so that you can follow our trip!

Arrived in Budapest on Friday evening and ate dinner at the delicious Cyrano restaurant in walking distance from our hotel.

Dinner consisted of Gulash soup or Indian carrot and corn soup, paprika chicken with egg gnocchi (or lentils for the vegetarian), and a wonderful fruit/ginger yogurt.

Our hotel, Budapest Panorama Central Hotel, is really a floor of an apartment-like building. Each floor of the building looks at the Center courtyard. The rooms are small but lovely. The owner of the hotel even provided a bottle of wine for each room.

World Refugee Day

June 20, 2010 is World Refugee Day.

This year's World Refugee Day on June 20th has as its theme, "Home," in recognition of the plight of more than 40 million uprooted people around the world. Around 10 million of them are refugees of special concern to UNHCR...Read more.

East Valley Middle School Hosts Survivors

Julie Scott, a teacher at East Valley Middle School in Spokane, arranges for a Holocaust survivor to speak to her students each year. This is no small task since she must arrange for survivors to fly to Spokane from Western Washington.

Recently, Holocaust survivors Noemi B. and Peter M. spoke at East Valley Middle School.

Julie describes the photos shown here and the experience:

"Eighth grade students at East Valley Middle School listen to Holocaust survivor, Noemi Ban, sharing her experiences during the Nazi occupation of Hungary and in Auschwitz/Birkenau. Students were touched by her story and felt a special connection to her. Several described her as having a warm aura and being like a grandma that they just wanted to hug. She kept them on the edge of their seats, and students said they felt like they were there with her, because she was so descriptive in telling her story."

Speakers Bureau Luncheon and Writing/Art Contest Awards Ceremony

On Sunday, May 23rd, the Holocaust Center hosted its annual Spring Luncheon to honor members of the Speakers Bureau as well as the winners of the Jacob Friedman Writing and Art Contest. Over 150 people attended the luncheon, which took place in the Mercer Island Community Center at Mercer View.

Following Senator Ed Murray’s words of welcome, Speakers Bureau members shared their experiences that took place over the course of the past year. Members gave 255 presentations, sharing stories with 27,268 teachers, students, and community members. They traveled within Washington State as well as other places in Idaho, Oregon, California, Washington D.C., Germany, Hungary, the Czech Republic and even Taipei, Taiwan.

The winners of the Jacob Friedman Writing and Art Contest were also recognized at the ceremony. This included 26 students in the 5th/6th, 7th/8th, 9th/10th grade writing and art categories, out of the 750 entries that the Center received. Winners read excerpts from their work and were presented with awards.

The Center would like to extend special thanks to students for the effort they put into the contest and Speakers Bureau members for their dedication to sharing their stories with the community and teaching for humanity.

SJCS Teacher Beth Huppin Receives 2010 Covenant Award

The Holocaust Center congratulates Beth Huppin!

COVENANT FOUNDATION NAMES 2010 AWARDEES FOR EXCELLENCE IN JEWISH EDUCATION


Image at right: Winning art entry from one of Beth Huppin's students, Shai G.

Seattle Jewish Community School teacher Beth Huppin recognized as one of Three Jewish Educators who are Recipients of the Prestigious Covenant Award, and Cited for Innovation, Inspiration and Impact on Jewish Education and Community

2010 Recipients Move Their Students To Take Action
New York – June 1, 2010 – Three exceptional educators from across the spectrum of Jewish life are 2010 recipients of The Covenant Foundation’s prestigious Covenant Award for their commitment to excellence and for designing innovative approaches making lasting impact on students, community and Jewish education.

Beth Huppin, a Judaic Studies teacher at the Seattle Jewish Community School; Jan Darsa, Director of Jewish Education at Facing History and Ourselves in Brookline, MA; and Dr. Bernard Steinberg, President and Director of Harvard Hillel are the 2010 awardees.



“The institutions they have enriched, the programs they have initiated, and the influence they have had on their students, their peers, and the community at large is enormous,” said Eli N. Evans, chairman of the board of directors of The Covenant Foundation. “They do not share one denomination, one pedagogical approach, one teaching venue, or one definition of teaching. The one commonality among these uncommon people is their abiding love of Judaism and the Jewish people and their devotion to the perpetuation of the Jewish heritage.”

The three awardees join 57 other Jewish educators honored with a Covenant Award since the Foundation established the citation in 1991. Each will receive $36,000, and each of their institutions will receive $5,000.

The Foundation and the Jewish community will honor the 2010 Covenant Awardees on Nov. 7 at a gala dinner and award ceremony in New Orleans during the General Assembly of the Jewish Federations of North America.

“The Covenant Award gives deserved recognition to those doing extraordinary, innovative and impactful work on the ground,” said Harlene Winnick Appelman, Executive Director of The Covenant Foundation and 1991 Covenant Award recipient. “Their daily work, often uncelebrated, touches Jews of all ages seeking inclusion and fulfillment in Jewish life, immeasurably strengthening Jewish community and continuity. Each of our 2010 awardees has made it his or her life’s work to call students to action and encourage them to live lives of engagement.”

Beth Huppin has taught day school Judaic Studies at the Seattle Jewish Community School since 1995 and is currently a fifth-grade teacher there. She is also a middle school and adult education teacher at Congregation Beth Shalom in Seattle.

Huppin is widely recognized by colleagues, students, parents and others in the community as an inspiring teacher and leader who puts her stamp on Jewish education by injecting Jewish values and action - both in and out of the classroom - into curricula and the lives of her students.
Not satisfied with transmitting information, she regularly calls her students to action. Once a month, for example, she takes her fifth-grade students at Seattle Jewish Community School to serve meals to homeless persons, and participants have described the experience as transformative.

“The ultimate goal of Jewish education is tikkun olam,” she said. “The continuation of the Jewish people has meaning only if we fulfill God’s commands to repair this broken world.”
Huppin has had a critical impact on the Seattle Jewish Community School’s educational philosophy, has played a guiding role in the development of the Judaic curriculum, and is a mentor to new teachers. She has taught and inspired teachers from around the country at CAJE (Coalition for the Advancement of Jewish Education) conferences.

Colleagues said she cherishes and thrives among students and teachers and leads by example with her charitable activities, especially among the homeless in the Seattle area.
“Beth has been asked many times to take on the official title of Jewish Studies Coordinator at SJCS,” said Head of School Debra J. G. Butler, who nominated Huppin for the Covenant Award. “Despite the fact that she virtually performs this role, she has refused the title in order not to separate herself from other teachers. Beth is a teacher among teachers. She inspires her colleagues, our elementary school students, and the middle and high school students she teaches in supplementary school programs and the many adults she has taught.”

“In honoring a classroom teacher, the Covenant Foundation honors not just me, but also all those teachers who are in the classroom day in and day out, guiding children and adults to discover the beauty and richness of Torah learning,” said Huppin, who holds degrees from Brandeis University and the University of Judaism. “It honors all of the classroom teachers who, as Heschel said, strive to respond to the call for ‘text people,’ and not only ‘textbooks,’ and who know that caring for each other is the bedrock of Judaism.”

Read full article which includes information on the other recipients...

The Holocaust Center thanks Beth Huppin for her fine work and her dedication to Holocaust education. This past year, one of her students placed second place in the Holocaust Center's writing/art contest.

Students create quilts to honor Holocaust survivor Susie S.

Students from Lisa Kreiger's class at Kalles Junior High School in Puyallup, designed two Holocaust quilts, which they recently donated to the Holocaust Center. These quilts were inspired by the class's Holocaust unit and were created to honor Susie S., the Holocaust survivor who spoke to their class in April.

Says Kreiger of the unit, "We examined the unit from the perspective of the theme of justice and injustice and the role of the bystander in helping, as well as the role of discrimination and propaganda in genocide."

Students were moved by what they learned in the unit and from Susie, a member of the Holocaust Center's Speakers Bureau.

Both quilts are on display at the Holocaust Center. Thank you for all of your hard work Kalles Junior High!

Can't get to DC but want to attend one of the USHMM's teacher seminars?

On August 24, 2010, the Holocaust Center is partnering with the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum and Seattle University to bring to Seattle

Perspectives on the Holocaust: A Seminar for Educators.

Register Now! (Space is limited.)

This one-day, information packed seminar will provide educators with a solid foundation for teaching about the Holocaust in their classrooms.

We are proud to welcome as our keynote speaker Carl Wilkens, former head of the Adventist Development and Relief Agency International in Rwanda, and one of only a handful of Americans who chose to stay in the country after the genocide began. Wilkens is currently the director and founder of World Outside My Shoes.

Sessions are lead by the Holocaust Center's master teachers and USHMM teacher fellows - teachers who have had extensive training and experience in the subject of the Holocaust and genocide.

If you've been teaching the Holocaust for years, or if you have never taught the subject before - all teachers will find the day challenging, thought-provoking, and insightful. No one will leave without having gained new resources and new ideas.

Sessions include:

Nazi Ideology and the Holocaust: An Historical Overview
Guidelines for Teaching the Holocaust
Breakout sessions (Social Studies, Language Arts, and others)

Nazi Propaganda

Local Resources
Antisemitism and the Holocaust
Understanding Contemporary Genocide: The Case of Rwanda (Carl Wilkens)

Stories from a Survivor (Evening program - open to the public)

This incredible professional development opportunity is FREE. Lunch, snacks, and all materials are provided. Clock hours available. Regsitration is now open and space is limited.

Register Now!

Perspectives on the Holocaust: A Seminar for Educators
August 24, 2010
At Seattle University, Seattle
Sponsored by the Washington State Holocaust Education Resource Center, the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, and Seattle University.

Questions or want more information? Please email Ilana Cone Kennedy, Director of Education, Holocaust Center at ilanak@wsherc.org.

Outstanding educator and WSHERC board member Pat G. bringing Gerda Weissman Klein to Seattle!

Holocaust speaker coming to Kent: Gerda Weissman Klein the subject of Oscar-winning filmBy Laura Pierce

Kent Reporter Editor

May 20 2010, 7:00 PM

For Pat Gallagher, a visit from a holocaust survivor next month is the culmination of a 14-year friendship, rich in meaning and poignant with remembrance.

Gallagher, an instructional facilitator at the Kent Mountainview Academy, along with students of the Kent School District, will be welcoming Gerda Weissman Klein, a renowned human rights speaker and Nazi labor-camp survivor, when she comes to speak June 7 at a holocaust symposium that Gallagher has organized.

Klein, whose memoir "All But My Life" was the basis of the Oscar-winning documentary "One Survivor Remembers," has been a friend of Gallagher's since a chance meeting in 1996 read more...

Kelly Wheeler - 2010 Bethel Teacher of the Year!

Congratulations to Kelly Wheeler, of Spanaway Lake High School, for receiving the Bethel School District's Teacher of the Year award!

Kelly's creativity and commitment to Holocaust education contributed to her selection.

Kelly has worked with the Holocaust Center for several years. Last year Kelly was one of two teachers sponsored by the Holocaust Center to attend the prestigious Jewish Foundation for the Righteous Summer Insitute at Columbia University in New York. Kelly is one of the Holocaust Center's master teachers, serving on the Holocaust Center's Education Advisory Committee and a presenter at the Center's teacher workshops. This summer Kelly will travel with the Holocaust Center and Museum Without Walls on a Holocaust study trip to Budapest and Prague.

"Life may not be as simple as how and why, but asking those questions allows us to learn about ourselves and others," [Kelly Wheeler] said. "With understanding comes respect. With respect for others there is no racism, class distinction or gender bias." (Bethel Pride Newsletter)

Thank you Kelly for all of your incredible work within our community!

Image: Kelly Wheeler presenting at the Holocaust Center's Teacher workshop in Tacoma, November 2009.

Read article about Kelly Wheeler and the Teacher of the Year Award in the Bethel Pride - Click here.