Guarding
the flame
By Marion Marrache
(April 16) - Holocaust education is expanding for high school students,
due in large part to the International School for Holocaust Studies
run by Yad Vashem. Marion Marrache reports...
The beds Jews slept in at Auschwitz are still there, as are the
infamous crematoriums.
In Jerusalem's Reut Pluralistic High School last year, Judy Kirschner,
17, learned details relating to the death of six million Jews during
the Holocaust. But nothing prepared her for what it felt like to
be standing where they stood in Poland last September.
"Only going there could show us how real it was," Kirschner says.
She didn't know what was worse. The wooden barracks at Auschwitz,
left as a grim reminder, or the total absence of any sign that Jews
had suffered and died at Sobibor.
"There was nothing left, only expanses of green and we had to imagine
all the horrors that must have gone on in that seemingly peaceful
place," Kirschner says.
Years ago, Israeli children rarely learned about the Holocaust in
depth, much less traveled to Poland for a closer look.
As a child, Israeli Gila Kantor was not even aware that the Holocaust
took place within the context of WWII. Kantor, now an 11th-grade
teacher at Reut, recalls how Holocaust studies were taught purely
in relation to Holocaust Remembrance Day.
"We would take a chapter or two from a book on the subject and discuss
it for a few days before and after Holocaust Day."
It was more a teaching of the terrible trauma than of the bigger
picture in the context of history.
HOLOCAUST studies in Israel have traditionally revolved around Holocaust
Remembrance Day. The sirens heard throughout the land, as they will
be this year on April 19, result in a total standstill for two minutes.
Even cars stop in the streets and many drivers and passengers descend
from them and stand to attention.
To be on an Israeli bus and to share that moment with fellow Jews
in the Promised Land produces a unique feeling; to taste the feeling
of freedom and to think of those who lost theirs so far away.
In the last two decades, however, educators have become more serious
about the process of remembering - understanding that it takes more
than a flicker in time to brand the past into the minds of a new
generation.
Since 1981 Holocaust studies have been compulsory in this country.
High school students must spend 30 hours on the subject between
grades 11 and 12 and will then be tested on their knowledge as part
of their matriculation exams.
Additionally, it has become mandatory for all history books used
in the last two years of high school to contain a chapter on the
Holocaust. And there are at least seven institutions in this country
that deal with Holocaust education. The largest in Israel, and among
the largest in the world, is the International School for Holocaust
Studies run byYad Vashem, The Holocaust Martyrs' and Heroes' Remembrance
Authority.
It boasts 17 classrooms, a modern multimedia center, a resource
and pedagogical center, an auditorium and a staff of 90 educators.
The school caters annually to more than 100,000 students and youth,
50,000 soldiers, and thousands of educators from Israel and around
the world. Courses for teachers are offered in seven languages other
than Hebrew. Staff from the institute also travels abroad to work
on Holocaust education in other countries.
The staff of the ISHS is composed of past and present teachers,
most of them with PhDs in Holocaust studies. Some teach at other
venues as well, others exclusively at the school.
Lately it has made several international diplomatic contacts which
have lead to seminars being prepared exclusively for those countries.
Last October the first ever seminar of Austrian educators was held
at the school.
"THE Holocaust is part of our identity and consciousness since the
day we are born," says Shulamit Imber, pedagogical director of the
ISHS.
Most families have relatives of some degree or another who actually
experienced the Holocaust. Many stories are told, many books read,
but at the same time there is grave ignorance, Imber says. "Because
the media shows a lot of Holocaust movies we think we know all about
it but really what we know is uncontrolled, unfiltered and we are
just bombarded with details which we don't know where to put."
"Holocaust education should not take place just on Holocaust Day,"
says Imber. Holocaust Remembrance Day ought to in a sense be a culmination
of what one has learned about the subject. The learning must take
place all year round, she says.
Kantor considers generations of Israelis to have been traumatized
by the way the subject of the Holocaust was taught to them. "Only
the trauma was passed on, not the other aspects."
Now, Kantor believes Israelis are historically far enough removed
from the time of the Holocaust to have gained a certain perspective
through education.
And "survivors are lately more willing to tell their stories." Earlier,
she explains, there was no tolerance, no flexibility. People didn't
want to listen, they wanted to forget the "galut" and so those with
stories to tell had to bury them.
Kantor herself has become heavily involved in Holocaust education.
She has edited two Holocaust books and is presently working on a
third. This September she will be one of the teachers to accompany
a delegation of 35 students from Reut on their trip to Poland.
The ISHS was established in the early 1990s and in 1999 opened up
a new building on the Yad Vashem campus. Before that teachers would
bring their students to Yad Vashem, to the Ghetto Fighters Museum
(Lohamie Hageta'ot) near Acre, to Masua (in the Tel Aviv area),
to Moreshet (in Emek Hefer) or to other institutions of this kind
for a day seminar.
There have been Holocaust study programs in this country since the
1970s, Imber says. Yad Vashem always had an education department
which did very good work in Israel and abroad. But in the last seven
years, a large staff have been accumulated who deal specifically
with writing and developing new material and teaching systems. ISHS
as it is today was initiated by Avner Shalev, chairman of Yad Vashem.
Imber considers the new system far improved since it allows teachers
who have attended seminars to interact with their students in their
home classrooms and to deal with the needs of each individual at
the level of both learning and understanding. Of course, schools
still come on visits to Yad Vashem, but this is an additional teaching
aid.
More than 100,000 high school students visit Yad Vashem annually
in order to participate in seminars lasting one or two days, says
Imber. The program for junior high students on the museum grounds
is different, she explains, in that it deals more with communities
lost in the Holocaust.
Although all government schools - both secular and religious - include
Holocaust studies in their curriculum, Haredi schools do not observe
Holocaust Remembrance Day. They take a different approach. These
type of schools teach about the Holocaust based on the yahrzeits
of famous rabbis who died during that time, and they learn Mishnayot
in their memory. ISHS is working on a book specifically for this
population, which will deal with the stories of Haredi people in
the Holocaust.
ISHS believes in starting early and offers an educational curriculum
for children in kindergarten through 12th grade, says Imber.
At an early age children can assimilate stories related to one person.
As they develop, so do the connections they make, and they can relate
individual stories to families and finally to whole communities.
In this way, as the child grows so does his understanding of the
Holocaust.
ISHS finds this "age-appropriate exposure" a very useful and proper
tool.
The ISHS urges the study of Jewish life even before the Holocaust.
Kantor notes that in Krakow there were eight synagogues in close
proximity to each other. "This illustrates what kind of Jewish life
there was at the time."
For so long, she says, "what everybody knew about were the gas chambers
and the ghettos, and nobody was aware of that great link in history
that Jewish life in the Diaspora forged."
Looking at the dilemmas faced by Jews in the holocaust after understanding
their past helps humanize the victims. Asking students to visualize
these conflicts through activities such as "How was it to live side
by side with those who were dying of starvation?" is also useful,
Imber says. Teachers should then continue on to the story of how
the survivors returned to life, says Imber.
The ISHS develops material in these directions. It also takes an
interdisciplinary approach.
"We do have to teach the facts," says Imber, "but it is essential
to also examine the literature, the art, the diaries. To deepen
the human story. This can help the children feel more empathetic
and really understand the loss our people suffered. The more you
get to know the story, the more you feel the pain of the destruction."
ISHS has written and published a large variety of books and videos.
Hannele's Rescue is geared towards young children, from kindergarten
through the second grade. It deals with the story of a little girl
who went into hiding and was eventually rescued. "This introduces
the concept of the rescuers," says Imber. Similarly I Wanted To
Fly Like A Butterfly is also an elementary school book.
There are new books being printed about the Holocaust which are
part of the material available for the matriculation examinations.
Shoah Vezikaron, published by Yad Vashem and Shaoh Masa El Hazikaron
by Nili Keren (Sifrei Tel Aviv) are two of the latest.
Outcast and Stolen Childhood are films targeting a junior high school
audience. Stolen Childhood deals with the story of three children
aged 10 to 12 at the beginning of the Holocaust. They go into hiding
and take on life-and-death responsibilities far in excess of their
years.
Other films include Everyday Life In The Warsaw Ghetto and The Legend
of Lodcz Ghetto. All books and films come with a poster for classroom
use. Three CD Roms have been released for the moment, including
Return to Life and the Clips of Humanity.
"Teachers can take many different directions, " says Imber, "depending
on what they feel comfortable with. Some consider modern technology
an integral part of their classrooms, others disagree.
"We travel around the country once a week and offer seminars to
1,000 teachers weekly.
They attend one of our seminars each year. Teachers taking this
seminar feel that they then have more to offer their students,"
Imber says.
Teachers attend the course voluntarily. Those who teach the matriculation
classes make up only a small percentage of attendees, says Imber.
Most of those who take part want to be able to teach Holocaust studies
properly and feel it is important to be properly trained.
Aryeh Geiger, headmaster of a pluralistic religious school in the
Katamon neighborhood of Jerusalem said he uses material from ISHS
to teach Holocaust at his school starting in grade 9. The most intense
holocaust curriculum at his school is geared at his school is geared
for grade 11 in preparation for an annual school trip to Poland
senior year.
Geiger, himself did a year long course with Yad Vashem in conjunction
with Minhal Hahevra ve Hanoar, the department of the Ministry of
Education that deals with student trips to Poland.
Although studying it helps prepare students for their trip to Poland,
he is not so sure that the Holocaust should be studied as a matriculation
subject.
"Once it becomes another subject to be tested in, such as math or
history," says Geiger, "it does not have the same value as something
studied in and for itself. Paradoxically it can come to have just
the opposite effect of what you are intending. You are kind of neutralizing
the subject."
Reut senior, Yuval Cohen, 17, says he shares his headmaster's ambivalence
about including the Holocaust in the regular curriculum.
"In a way it has become a subject, like history," he says "it is
a pity to constrict the subject." Cohen thinks that Holocaust studies
should take place outside the confines of the school, in seminars
and trips to places of interest and to museums. About his trip to
Poland he says," It helped me mature. I think it should be compulsory
for every single child."
Kirschner said she found Holocaust classes difficult to sit through
because they were so emotional even though she didn't have any relatives
who are survivors.
"Sometimes in class I wanted to break down in tears. I don't think
this is a reaction one has in other subjects! It is all very personal,
even though we are taught it as history."
But it was the trip to Poland that impacted her the most.
"I don't take things for granted anymore since I have come back
from Poland. This past yom Kippur was different as was this Pessah.
I look at everything with more appreciation. I was always a Zionist,
but now I am even more so. Israel is so important, so are the holidays,
and family," Kirschner said.
In teaching the Holocaust says Kantor it's important to rescue the
individual stories from those piles of bodies. Hidden within there
are stories of humanity
Kantor talks about another group of students from Reut, taken from
grades nine to 11, who are being trained to become pluralistic leaders.
One of their projects is how to create an awareness of the Jewish
people who helped to rescue others during the Holocaust. There has
always been a lot of publicity given to the Righteous Gentiles,
but it is not well-known that there were also a lot of Jewish rescuers.
The project will deal with interviewing people and recording their
stories.
Overall, Kantor believes that the view of the Holocaust today is
more balanced. "We can deal with it in a more critical way because,
strange as it sounds, we have paid the emotional tax."
The children are very eager to learn about it, explains Kantor.
Some of her students even have grandparents who are survivors and
yet for years these children didn't have a clue as to what went
on before the Holocaust.
"As an educator," she says, "I believe that if you don't know what
your past, is you have no future."
About her students she says: "The more they learn about the Holocaust,
the more I am surprised by their maturity."
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