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| You are here: 2000 / Workshops, Panels and Seminars / Panel 3: Holocaust Research - From the Archives to the Classroom / Report from Panel 3 - on Holocaust Research - From the Archives to the Classroom | |||||||||
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Report from Panel 3 - on Holocaust Research - From the Archives to the Classroom Presentation by Professor Michael R. Marrus Presentation by Professor Ulrich Herbert Presentation by Professor David Bankier Report from Panel 3 - on Holocaust Research - From the Archives to the Classroom Report from Panel 3 Chair: Prof. Michael Marrus
The Panel’s objective was to focus on the process of how new findings in the academic world could get the attention of school teachers. The panellists all presented different and important aspects of this process from the archives to the class-room. Presenters:Prof. David Bankier Prof. Ulrich Herbert Prof. Feliks Tych Prof. David Bankier, Head of the Division of Holocaust Studies of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, commenced the panel by stressing the need to transmit new findings based on archival research to the community of teachers and their students. Teachers lack time to do their own research and therefore a mechanism is needed to bring the archival material to the teachers. The obstacles can readily be overcome as the age of the computer has arrived. In the same way, as publishers publish pamphlets with revisions of printed textbooks, new findings in relation to existing text books can be made available on the Internet. Information thus made available should also contain key documents on the topics. Finally, the information has to be annotated and commented upon in relation to the existing text book. Prof. Ulrich Herbert, of the University of Freibourg,, chose to discuss history and the findings in archives. One important issue is understanding what drove the perpetrators. Based on archival work, new insights have come forward during recent years. Although the population as a whole did not persecute the Jews, they did not stop it either. The scenario during 1930´s was the ethnic cleansing in Eastern Europe, especially of Jews. The emphasis of study of the perpetrators is on their biographies and thereby trying to understand the motive behind the Holocaust. Most of the perpetrators were quiet, solid, middle-class and young. The Holocaust appears to be a melange of ideological and material motives. Prof. Herbert gave the example of the town of Kovno in explaining how to differentiate the back-ground to the Holocaust. Long-term demographic planning in Germany for a migration to eastern Europe meant that the Jewish population had to be removed. There was also security aspects, and, due to food-shortages, it was said that the Jewish population were useless mouths to be fed. There was no attempt in the Baltic states to hide the genocide; the pogroms and the killings were performed in full view of the population. Anti-semitism, said Prof. Herbert, could be differentiated into traditional anti-Semitism, which was found in Germany and the Baltic states, as well as an intellectual anti-semitism held mainly by intellectuals and university students, who allegedly saw historical reasons for anti-Semitism. Finally, there were those who were not interested, who neither played an active role, but who also had no moral position against those people who were actively anti-semitic. This problem was understood as secondary. Herbert concluded therefore that there is no need for fanatic, wide-spread anti-semitism to provide the basis for a holocaust. Massive indifference is more than enough. It was melange of factors rather than a desire for mass-murder which we saw during the Holocaust. Prof. Feliks Tych, Director of the Institute of Jewish History in Warsaw, put the emphasis on the obstacles to, rather than the methods for, bringing the facts from the archives to the class-rooms. He did this by drawing on the example of Eastern and Central European countries. To date the emphasis of teaching has been on the suffering of the population and the resistance to occupation, which has also happened in Western European countries such as the Netherlands and France. During the communist time there was silence, the question was rather who suffered most, the Poles or the Jews? History books and teaching in the schools is performed in an ideological manner which serves to up-hold national myths. Therefore, he said, the focus must be put on the social environment and its influences during the Holocaust. There is a gap in these countries between research and the textbook, with historians trying to protect the population from embarrassing facts. For example, the population in Poland, Ukraine, Belarus and the Baltic states were all direct observers of the Holocaust and can therefore not be expected to be morally intact. 10 years ago, those who tried to tell the truth about collaboration in Poland were not allowed to function publicly. This is beginning to change and there are an increasing number of books by young Polish scholars. However, even among these, dealing directly with the Holocaust is still avoided. Prof. Marrus, chair of the Panel and Dean of Graduate Studies at the University of Toronto, offered as his main point that research and teaching about the Holocaust must be conducted by historians. The history professor, he says, must get it right. Scientific research and study of the Holocaust is the necessary underpinning of what goes on in the classroom. To analyse this further, four questions can be posed which are often asked about Holocaust history. Why academic history? Isn’t memory more important? Don’t we know enough already? Why the Holocaust? What about the widespread disagreement over major interpretative issues? Getting it right, to understand, interview about the Holocaust, involves occasionally the recollections of Holocaust survivors. However, memory is no substitute for objective, professional, scientific historical inquiry. Historians will also become increasingly important as the ranks of survivors grows thinner. Memory itself grows faint and needs constant verification. Do we know enough already? A number of questions have to be asked in order to understand why it actually happened, and posing these questions requires some measure of objectivity. Why the Holocaust? The effort, set as a major objective in war by a highly-developed industrial society, to destroy entirely an entire people is now widely seen to be unprecedented. Whatever one’s view, the Holocaust has become a major reference point for our time. Lastly the question of the disagreement among the scholars. Prof. Marrus concluded by saying that because the Holocaust is actually like all other histories, it must constantly be rewritten. Questions and comments from the audience were all related to the presentation by the Chair and the panellists. The problem and lack of language among the professionals were discussed, since most research has so far been conducted on German files. Even here testimony is important. These findings have to be cross-examined, although the lack of knowledge in languages such as Yiddish, Lithuanian, Russian makes the task of cross-examination a difficult one. The social debate affecting the historian was also stressed, an aspect which affects information as it is transformed from the archives to the class-room. Questions about how information about the Holocaust is transmitted to university students studying law, medicine or journalism were also raised. >> Back to top |
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Introduction Opening Session: Messages and speeches Plenary Sessions: Messages and speeches Workshops, Panels and Seminars
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| For information about this production and the Stockholm International Forum Conference Series please go to www.humanrights.gov.se or contact Information Rosenbad, SE-103 33 Stockholm, Sweden | |||||||||