Students Create Holocaust Book Based On Relatives Who Survived The War

Student Centre Learning - Brooklyn, NY - Borough Park Students

Today's update comes from my New York City based colleague, Emily Witty. Emily alerted me to this innovative and incredibly interesting learning activity that was happening in Borough-Park.  You can also CLICK HERE and read an entire article about how middle school students are learning about the Holocaust.

The article notes that Rabbi Shiye Rosen’s 21 all-male eighth grade class at the Bobov Bais Medrash school on 15th Avenue has completed a 208- page book featuring first person tales of escaping war.“The generation of the Holocaust is dying out. The community is dying out. The community is getting smaller and smaller. Twenty years from now, you are not going to be able to meet a guy who survived the Holocaust,” said Rosen, 27,. “I felt that we had to do this project now.”Each boy spent the entire school year tracking down survivors in their own families, competing lengthy interviews, and then writing a chapter about their relatives’ World War II terrors.

Truly a remarkable learning experience for these students, and students are learning about the human toll of the Holocaust rather than focusing on numbers.

Thilo Sarrazin Strikes Again

German Author Says Berlin Is Hostage to Holocaust in Euro Crisis

Just when you thought it was safe to go back into the water - controversial German author Thilo Sarrazin strikes again. Actually I thought we had heard the last of Sarrazin (pictured above) two years ago, but unfortunately he seems to enjoy all the publicity he receives making controversial and ill-conceived remarks, and of course controversy is usually good for book sales - and yes, Sarrazin has a new book on the market. Of course the other argument evidenced by this latest controversial remark  is that it reinforces the theory that ideology never really dies, it just lurks in the background waiting to be reinvented. 

In a recent article in Spiegel Online, notes that" Thilo Sarrazin, the former board member of Germany's central bank who caused outrage two years ago with a bestseller criticizing the impact of Muslim immigrants on German society, presented a new book on Tuesday that could strike a similar chord with Germans: "Europe Doesn't Need the Euro." In his latest work, the combative politician, a maverick member of the opposition center-left Social Democratic Party, controversially argues that Germany is being pressured to bail out the euro zone because it perpetrated the Holocaust.  Sarrazin writes that supporters of euro bonds in Germany "are driven by that very German reflex, that we can only finally atone for the Holocaust and World War II when we have put all our interests and money into European hands," according to excerpts published in German media ahead of the book launch.

Politicians lined up to dismiss the comment as an attempt to whip up publicity for his book launch with crude rhetoric laced with far-right undertones. "It is pitiful that he invokes the Holocaust to secure the maximum possible attention for his theories on euro bonds," the parliamentary floor leader of the opposition Greens, Jürgen Trittin, told the newspaper Die Welt on Monday, adding that Sarrazin was engaging in "deutsche mark chauvinism."

'Nationalist and Reactionary'
Carsten Schneider, a budget policy spokesman for the SPD, said: "Sarrazin is once again trying out the usual provocation. His criticism of the euro is nationalist and reactionary." Volker Kauder, the parliamentary group leader of Chancellor Angela Merkel's Christian Democrats, said: "Sarrazin is wrong again. The euro is a success story and will remain so." CLICK HERE to read the entire article online.

Not only are Sarrazin's remarks misguided - bailing out the Euro zone because Germany perpetrated the Holocaust- but such facile arguments demonstrate a trivialization of the Holocaust  Really, where does Sarrazin come up with this rationale? There are many legacy issues related to the Holocaust, but Mr. Sarrazin, this is not one of them.

Fifteen years of research leads to four-volume book on Holocaust—in Farsi

Holocaust Scholarship in Farsi

From the JTA news service comes a fascinating article about a four-volume series of books on the Holocaust, written in Farsi. The articles notes that "Ari Babaknia doesn’t expect that Iran’s president will ever read his four-volume series of Holocaust books written in the Farsi language. But the author says he is confident that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad knows the books exist. “I’ve done 10, 11 television interviews,” Babaknia said -- interviews that are transmitted via satellite to Iran.

He has sent the four volumes, released in April, to three people in Iran who requested it via the website memorah.com.The volumes are titled “Man’s Inhumanity to Man,” “America’s Response to the Holocaust,” “The World’s Response to the Holocaust” and “End of the Holocaust and Liberation of Nazi Camps and the Genocides of the Last 100 Years.” Once the David S. Wyman Institute for Holocaust Studies and Babaknia’s family Memorah Foundation, which published the volumes, recoup what the author estimates at $70,000 to $80,000 in publishing costs, he plans to make the works available online for free.

Babaknia, an Iranian-born Jew who sits on the Wyman board, says the costs do not account for his time or the money he paid for researchers or designers.A physician who completed medical school in Tehran, Babaknia arrived in the United States in 1974 to continue his education in women’s medical health and then infertility. In the 1990s, he began his Holocaust research. “More than 120 million speak or write Farsi in the world, and there never has been a well-researched or -documented book about the Holocaust in Farsi,” said Babaknia, 65, of Newport Beach, Calif.

However, Project Aladdin, a UNESCO-sponsored project that works to foster positive relations between Muslims and Jews and to combat Holocaust denial, does offer several books on the Holocaust in Farsi translation. Babaknia said he initially expected to complete his research during a one-year sabbatical.

“One year was two or three years, then it was 15 years later,” said Babaknia, who explained that he kept finding himself with more questions to research.

CLICK HERE to read the entire article.

Holocaust Denial in 2012

Holocaust Denial: Assaults on Collective Memory Becloud Europe's Future 

An interesting article in The Huffington Post discusses the continuing appearance of Holocaust denial in Europe. Rabbi Abraham Cooper of the Simon Wiesenthal Centre in Los Angeles describes some of the recent examples. In his article he notes that "Simon Wiesenthal said the history of mankind is a history of crimes. No crime in the annals of history has been as well documented -- by the perpetrators, bystanders, interveners and victims -- as Nazi Germany's Final Solution, the state-sponsored genocide that systematically murdered 6 million European Jews. Against this backdrop, along with the proliferation of Holocaust museums, memorials, books and films, how do we account for the growing phenomenon of Holocaust revisionism and denial?" Cooper discusses the current economic crisis in some parts of Europe, and a lack of collective memory as some of the factors.

CLICK HERE to read the entire article.

Kay Andrews of IOE Presents to Canadian Teachers

Institute of Education Pedagogical Methods Introduced to Canadian Teachers

A special workshop for teachers and educators is currently being led by Kay Andrews in Toronto, Canada. Representing  the Holocaust education programme at the Institute of Education (IOE), University of London. Click here for more information about this internationally renowned programme.

As one of the leading Holocaust educators in the United Kingdom, Kay combines her classroom teaching experience with her passion for History, Language Arts, Character Education and Religious Education.  The pedagogical strategies utilized by Kay and the IOE are underpinned by the latest developments in Holocaust education and classroom practice.

In her presentation, Kay explores three essential questions: [1] How do we do justice to the scale and complexity of the Holocaust in limited curriculum time? [2] How do we move young people without traumatizing them? What if students don’t take it seriously or are hostile to learning about the Holocaust? [3] How can we manage effective cross-curricular cooperation, making the best use of subjects’ distinct disciplinary approaches to enrich students’ learning?

Like the Neuberger Holocaust Education Centre, the IOE is guided by principles of excellence in education and by the principles outlined by the intergovernmental Task Force for International Co-operation in Holocaust Education, Remembrance and Research (ITF).

32ns Annual Holocaust Education Symposium

Holocaust Education Symposium Underway Today - 14 May 2012

The Neuberger Holocaust Education Centre's 32^nd Annual Holocaust Education Symposium for High School Students is underway today at OISE (Ontario Institute for Studies in Education)

Kay Andrews pictured above, National Outreach Coordinator of the Institute of Education’s Holocaust Education Development Programme, at the University of London will deliver the keynote address. One of the leading Holocaust educators in the United Kingdom, Kay combines her experience as a classroom teacher with her expertise in the field of Holocaust Studies to engage students and educators in learning about the Holocaust. Her classroom teaching experience includes History, Language Arts, Character Education and Religious Education.

Kay engages her audience with the legacy issues of remembering and learning from the Holocaust in the 21^st century. Her warm and dynamic style encourages young people to think critically and deeply, about the role of the Holocaust in shaping the society we live in, the values we embrace and our role as individuals in creating an inclusive society for all Canadians.

As part of the theme, “Legacies and Responsibilities,” symposium participants will also hear from Aron Coman-Miko pictured above, a young Austrian carrying out Holocaust Memorial Service instead of mandatory military service. Aron completed 6 months of civil service in Krakow, Poland, and is currently interning with the Sarah and Chaim Neuberger Holocaust Education Centre.  Aron discusses what is like to “inherit the legacy” of being Austrian – a country that welcomed annexation to Nazi Germany – and how young Austrians are remembering their country’s history by making a difference in the world today. Students are certain to find Aron an inspiration, and understand how one’s decisions and actions can impact the society and world in which they live.

Anne Frank - A History for Today” Exhibition Opened in Istanbul

The exhibition "Anne Frank - A History for Today" opened at Kadir Has University in Istanbul.

This year, the exhibition "Anne Frank - A History for Today" will travel throughout Istanbul, visiting several venues. Anne Frank's engaging story touches people all around the world, providing an issue to ponder upon and discuss about themes such as prejudice, discrimination and human rights. Translated into Turkish, the exhibition will initially be displayed at Kadir Has University, Cibali Campus, between 21 March - 6 April 2012.

The international traveling exhibition Anne Frank - A History for Today places the story of Anne Frank against the backdrop of the Second World War and the Holocaust. The heart of the exhibition consists of quotations from Anne Frank's diary and the Frank family's photographs. This is accompanied by other personal narratives about the consequences of discrimination and persecution.

The exhibition is especially directed at young people and is enhanced by several educational materials which are translated in Turkish and will be used in guide training, teacher education seminars and university students. Turkish youngsters serve as guides to the exhibition. A two-day training prepares them for this responsibility. They learn about the content and the background of the exhibition, the best way to present the information to their peers and how to make contemporary topics discussable. After trainings they are called as ambassadors of Anne Frank and they were given their certificates at the end of opening ceremony.

CLICK HERE for more information.