What are the challenges of Holocaust education today, and what are the possible solutions?
Marks-Waldman observed that “the more we are pulled into addressing those problems of today and telling people and helping them understand the complexities of the wrongs that are being carried out today, the less we are actually teaching and commemorating the Holocaust.” Dr. Heyl noted another challenge: “In the field of Holocaust education and research, we have very ritualized ways of thinking, expressing ourselves,” emphasizing the need for a more self-reflective and self-critical approach and methods that allowed young people “to find their own words and attitudes towards this history.”
Dr. Casiez pointed out that “the passive majority is also very important in the educational work,” even though it seemed that it was not that big anymore. “I would also argue that thinking of more quality programs in terms of quantity is also an important thing,” added Dr. Kahrs. Following up on the thought of adult target groups, he noted that the workplace “is a very important environment where people would encounter other opinions; they would need to have the ability to react on racist sayings, xenophobia, and antisemitism.” He also noted that when working with German companies, there often existed a possibility to connect to their own history that reached into the Nazi times.
The voices from the audience raised the issues of hopes connected to the younger generations, on the one hand, but also concerns about the attitudes with which young people come to the memorial sites or museums, on the other; the matter of contemporary events that pose a challenge for memorial sites to deal with, like the conflict in Gaza; the question of universalizing, but also instrumentalizing and weaponizing the past and the consequences of these processes; the independence of Holocaust memorial sites, especially in the face of states becoming increasingly authoritarian and moving toward fascism.∎