Learning from the Past: Global Perspectives on Holocaust Education

From June 27-July 1 2012, the Salzburg Global Seminar hosted an intensive, in-depth, international symposium examined the role of the Holocaust as a reference point for educators around the world who teach about human rights and other genocides. In particular, this symposium focused on the work that is currently being undertaken by educators in countries that are not members of the Task Force for International Cooperation on Holocaust Education, Remembrance and Research (ITF)

Currently, within the academic community and among educational practitioners, there is a great deal of interest in the questions of how exactly connections between the Holocaust, other genocides, and human rights can be made in a responsible and coherent manner. There are significant gaps in research and in the literature on this issue, and there has as yet been no systematic overview of approaches, pedagogies, and methodologies for connecting education about the Holocaust, other genocides, and human rights. Most of the work that has been done in this area has focused almost exclusively on the European and North American context.

During the June 2012 symposium we highlighted and uncovered much of the interesting work that is currently being done to connect teaching about the Holocaust, teaching about other genocides, and teaching about human rights in other parts of the world. During the symposium, we examined closely the work that is being done in a number of countries including: South Africa, Ecuador, Rwanda, Turkey, China/Hong Kong, South Korea, Cambodia, Ukraine, and Morocco.

By bringing together experts and practitioners from around the world to present, share, and discuss their experiences we were able to generate an overview of how the Holocaust is taught outside of Europe and North America that is largely unprecedented. We believe that this will make a key contribution to current research on Holocaust education, will be vital to raising awareness of both the possibilities and the pitfalls that different approaches may involve, and will be a useful tool for educational practitioners.

The June 2012 symposium represents a continuity of our work in 2010 and 2011 (for more details, please see the box on the right labeled "Related SGS Programs).

This session was made possible through the generosity of:

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

Austrian Foreign Ministry

Austrian Future Fund

Task Force for International Cooperation on Holocaust Education, Remembrance and Research

National Fund of the Republic of Austria