Eastern Europe

The Holocaust and Anti-Racism Education Department has been at the forefront of Holocaust education in Eastern Europe for a number of years.

Poland

Poland was the first country in Eastern Europe where we worked, and developed teacher training programmes. After several years, the level was such that Poles were able to conduct their own seminars.

Ukraine

Since 2002, we have been working in Ukraine in partnership with Austria and the Netherlands as part of the International Task Force. Together we have convened conferences with Tkuma, a Jewish Cultural Institute in Dniepropetrovsk, with the regional Ministry of Education providing the venues. These were attended by teachers from towns, cities and villages in five regions in Ukraine:  Kiev, Lvov, Dniepropetrovsk, Kharkov and Nikolajev.

We have been working in Kiev in partnership with Lithuanian teachers. Last February we hosted our first conference in Lviv, again working with teachers on different levels. Each conference comprised lectures, workshops and visits to local sites of atrocities and memorial, with time at the end of each day devoted to teachers' comments and questions, and films.

By bringing together teachers who have already attended conferences with those who have not, we are able to deepen and broaden knowledge of the Holocaust in Ukraine. The trained teachers share their experience, offer support in lesson-preparation and enrich their skills in the teaching of this complex subject.

These conferences always attract wide and favourable publicity in the region, with coverage in Ukrainian TV news and reports in several national and local Ukrainian newspapers.

Belarus

In August 2003 the Department broke new ground by entering the heartland of pre-war Jewish life in Belarus. Annual conferences have been held since then, working together with both previous participants and new teachers.

Although reluctant at first to support this initiative, the International Task Force was persuaded by our track record of successful conferences, and by the unique and remarkable assistance of the Holocaust and Anti-Racism Department's mentor and guide, Jack Kagan.

Jack, himself a Holocaust survivor, lived with the Bielski partisans in the forests of Belarus after the Novogrudek ghetto had been liquidated. He guided the Department through the complexities of holding a seminar in a country which is not yet a signatory to the Stockholm Conference. Educators from the University in Minsk had already initiated local activities, but our seminar has specific aims:

a. to inform teachers about the Jews who had become lost to Belarus history
b. to provide insights into methods of teaching the Holocaust within the framework of reference to the "Great Patriotic War".

A museum is being set up in 2007 on the site in the forest where the partisans and Jewish families lived, with the advice and assistance of Jack Kagan and the curator of the museum in Novogrudek. Jack, together with a member of the department, was at the museum opening on July 24th.