“Our commitment must be to remember the victims who perished, respect the survivors still with us, and reaffirm humanity's common aspiration for mutual understanding and justice.”
-- Declaration of the Stockholm International Forum on the Holocaust
The Future of Auschwitz and Holocaust Education in Authentic Memorial Sites
30.10.2015
The Auschwitz Birkenau State Museum and the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam will realize a three-year educational project “The Future of Auschwitz and Holocaust Education in Authentic Memorial Sites”.
The project aims to improve visitors' knowledge of the sources of intolerance, racism, and antisemitism and to help them to understand the importance of respect for human rights. The project will also focus on the exchange of experience on how to connect the history of the Holocaust to contemporary issues concerning human rights and how to advance the educational experience of students visiting the Auschwitz Memorial through, among other things, online lessons.
Within the framework of the project, two online lessons will be translated into Dutch: “Auschwitz - concentration and extermination camp” and “Preparing for a visit to the Auschwitz Memorial Site.”
'This agreement will deepen our cooperation. What is important, is that we will also use the results of earlier work by Polish and Dutch teachers and educators. I hope that the fruits of this project will be a fuller understanding - primarily among young people - their responsibility in the face of such dangerous phenomena, such as intolerance, xenophobia, racism or anti-Semitism,' said the director of the Auschwitz Museum, Dr. Piotr M.A. Cywiński.
'Yearly, over a million people visit both the Anne Frank House and the Auschwitz Memorial, and their profile is constantly changing. Therefore, tours around the site should be conducted differently than for example, twenty years ago. That is why it is important to exchange common experiences, devise new methods of working with groups to show the significance of what happened in Auschwitz, and Amsterdam to the next generations,' said the director of the Anne Frank House, Ronald Leopold.
In addition, the agreement provides for the creation of a special program for "youth leaders" from Poland, who will be involved in the presentation of the exhibition "Anne Frank - a history for today" and “I’m from here. Poland of many nations.” Meetings will be organized for teachers and educators from schools and teacher training centers of both countries, as well as training and study visits to advance their knowledge about the history of the Second World War and extermination in the Netherlands. It is also addressed to educators of the Auschwitz Memorial who conduct tours for groups from this country. The entire project will be concluded with an international conference scheduled for autumn 2018. The realization of the project is possible thanks to the grant decision of the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Netherlands.