My paper will focus on the Italian memorial trains to Auschwitz, which have become a very popular phenomenon, still unparalleled in Europe. Namely, I will argue that they are an example of deterioration of Holocaust teaching by analyzing the three key following aspects: 1) Is the primary goal of this initiative teaching history or promoting moral education? Believing that a site visit is enough to generate a meaningful civilizing impact on the visitors means trivializing Auschwitz. On the one hand, the preparatory work for a trip there cannot include the teaching of the Holocaust in its full complexity. On the other hand, any content selection will obviously influence the students’ historical perception. 2) Both pedagogy and methodology would need more accuracy because most teachers taking part in these projects tend to have a passive attitude arising from their choice to leave their educational responsibility in the hands of the organizers, therefore renouncing to coordinate by themselves the learning process of their students. 3) The use of an unsuitable language not only results from a lack of precision in defining the historical facts (mixing of political deportation, forced labour and extermination of the Jews) but also leads to a universally moralizing effect of the Holocaust. In particular, the use of a too general vocabulary (including terms like: human beings, victims, innocent people) risks overlooking and minimizing the specificity of the genocide. Such a language prevents students from understanding that the Holocaust victims were the Jews and that they were murdered just because they were born Jews. Given the great success of the memorial trains initiative and its strong connection with the teaching of history, it is essential to consider how teachers respond to the major challenge they are faced with: combining good history teaching with the moral lesson of Auschwitz.
The Holocaust has pedagogical signicance not only for Jews and for Israel, but perhaps even more so for Christians, Europeans, North Americans, nad others. Its ramifications are especially salient with regard to theology and notions of nationality nad ethnicity. Examples are given from historical and liturgical texts, as well as belles lettres.
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The Universal and the Particular: Twin Foci in Holocaust Education The Holocaust has pedagogical signicance not only for Jews and for Israel, but perhaps even more so for Christians, Europeans, North Americans, nad others. Its ramifications are especially salient with regard to theology and notions of nationality nad ethnicity. Examples are given from historical and liturgical texts, as well as belles lettres.
W niniejszym eseju prześledzone są sposoby, w jakie traumatyczne relacje świadków Holokaustu zostały włączone w program nauczania historii Niemiec. Szczególną uwagę zwraca się na to, w jaki sposób uczniowie powinni zrozumieć kwestie Narodowego Socjalizmu i Holokaustu. Programy nauczania są zróżnicowane, a ich cele i metody związane z emocjami, wyobraźnią i wymiarem etycznym nie są – zgodnie z charakterem tego zagadnienia- wyraźnie zdefiniowane. Sytuacja ta stawia nauczycieli i uczniów przed pewnymi wyzwaniami, ale też możliwościami. Jedną z takich możliwości jest wykorzystanie wirtualnych przedstawień relacji świadków Holokaustu. Emocjonalne, opisujące traumatyczne wspomnienia narracje pozwalają uczniom przyjąć funkcję postronnych świadków; proces ten został pokrótce opisany. Trudności wynikające z wykorzystania ustnych przekazów polegają na tym, że są niedyskursywnym źródłem wiedzy, a nie dowodami historycznymi w tradycyjnym rozumieniu.
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This essay traces ways in which traumatic Shoah witness testimonies fit into German history curricula conceptually by highlighting the competencies with which pupils are meant to grasp the topic of National Socialism and the Holocaust. Such curricula are diverse and they keep the learning objectives and teaching methods pertaining to emotions, imagination and ethical dimensions - as relevant to the topic - abstractly vague. This poses certain challenges and opportunities for history teachers and pupils. One such opportunity is the incorporation of virtual video-graphed Shoah witness testimonies that by their nature are emotional as they narrate traumatic memories. The opportunity in such narrations lies in assigning the function of tertiary witnessing to pupils and this process is briefly described. The challenges of using such oral histories can be understood as those that clash with the non-discursively organised knowledge in pursuit of truth (verifiable facts) by means of what is traditionally considered historical evidence.
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