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| You are here: 2000 / Workshops, Panels and Seminars / Workshops on Education / Workshop 6 on Education, "Testimony in Education" / Report from Workshop 6 on Education: "Testimony in Education" | |||||||||
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Participants Countries and organizations Conference documentation Conference programme 
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Report from Workshop 6 on Education: "Testimony in Education" Presentation by Dr. Barbara Engelking-Boni Presentation by Mrs. Renée Firestone Presentation by Mrs. Trudy Gold Presentation by Dr. Kitty Hart-Moxon Presentation by Mr. Ben Helfgott Report from Workshop 6 on Education: "Testimony in Education" Report from Workshop 6 on Education Moderator: Mr. Michael Berenbaum
All the presenters in the wokshop stressed the importance of using personal testimony about individuals experiences during the Holocaust in Holocaust teaching and research. These testimonies enable the listener to relate to history so that it becomes less abstract. Testimonies also show an enormous variety of experience. Presenters: Mrs. Kitty Hart-Moxon Dr. Ben Helfgott Mr. Renee Firestone Ms. Barbara Engelkind-Bono Ms. Trudy Gold Ms. Malka Tor presentations: Kitty Hart-Moxon was first in the Lublin ghetto and then deported in 1943 to Auschwitz at the age of 15. There she witnessed the SS putting zyclon B into the gas chamber. After the evacuation she worked in German munitions factories and was liberated by the US army. She came to Britain in 1946, where she was met by an uncle who forbid her to speak about her experiences. Despite of the general hostility experienced whenever the subject came up, she felt the need to tell what happened. This has been her motivation in the struggle for survival. Her first book came out in 1961. A documentary film about her experiences was made in 1978, which was received with great interest. Her experience from working with school children shows the necessity of individualized testimony in teaching. When in a few years this will no longer be possible, it must be replaced by something else. Kitty demands more government funding and extended teacher training in order to combat prejudice. Ben Helfgott came to England in 1945 with a whole group of children. Being together helped in the process of readjustment. He has been active in the field of Holocaust education for many years and considers testimony and research to be equally important. He understands the Holocaust as a result of human attitudes/acts and is convinced that ”the more we know about the holocaust, the more we know what to prevent”. In order to fight intolerance, it is important in Holocaust education to refer to other groups of victims. The subject of the Holocaust may not be used to pursue private, political and/or religious agendas, but only to increase understanding and tolerance. Renee Firestone, who now lives in the USA, is a survivor who also works as an interviewer for the Shoa Foundation, which has collected tens of thousands of video interviews. In her opinion the Stockholm Forum will establish the fact that every country with its special experience needs its own agenda of education. Teaching the Holocaust requires the teacher to be well informed in order to prepare the class well. Only then can the visit of a survivor be really successful. Education is also about learning the lessons of all the genocides of the past century. Renee read some parts of letters she received from children after visiting their schools. They show strong empathy, but also reflect on hatred and intolerance in general. Reaching the children means to ”open their minds and start them thinking”. Barbara Engelkind-Bono from Poland raised 3 issues which have to be considered. She said that only if the interview is conducted in the language of the survivor which was used then, can one get as close as possible to the truth of what happened to them. Researchers have to be aware of the fact that the existing interviews are not automatically representative, that untold stories might give a different picture. In Poland, with its history of suffering, the Holocaust tends to be seen as a part of the experience of war and occupation. Trudy Gold informed the audience that for six years Holocaust studies have been part of the national curriculum in the UK for children at the age of 13/14. The Spiro Institute works together with a group of survivors and is active in many fields of Holocaust education, e.g. teacher training. They have also evaluated the survivors visits to schools, regarding which questions are most frequently asked and for teachers to evaluate the visit. Reactions to the testimonies show very emotional responses but also the desire to not let this happen again. A study of the long-term-impacts of these visits would be useful. In Great Britain, the Holocaust has become a vehicle of looking at all the cruelties in the world, using the categories of perpetrator/bystander/victim. Malka Tor from Yad Vashem stressed that one learns different lessons from different experiences. Memory cannot e a substitute for research, but that testimonies as a historical source provide details which might be underrepresented or absent in books. Testimonies as a historical source also need to be critically analyzed. Yad Vashem’s archive has collected 45.000 testimonies. The method of conducting interviews at Yad Vashem is to ask the survivor to talk about his/her whole life story, not only about the period of persecution. Someone on the panel added that children at school are also very interested about life after liberation. In the debate about the importance of testimony, presenters and audience agreed on the following points: Teachers must have a lot of knowledge and be pedagogically skillful. This demands greater effort regarding teacher training. M. Berenbaum added to the debate, saying that when using testimony in education, one brilliant tactic is to ask students to write to the survivor, because by doing this, ”one offers a way to process the experience”. This is very useful in order to go beyond pure reception and move on to a process of interaction. Students also need to be able to handle the new technologies which are becoming more and more important. Documented testimony in visual or oral form will have to be used in the lessons in the future. M. Berenbaum pointed out that the absence of testimony from the perpetrators is a structural weakness in the field of Holocaust research. This is partly due to the fact that this would mean having to face the human side of the perpetrator. ”Holocaust” has become the synonym for absolute evil in the western world. A need to discuss the question of what conclusions should be drawn from this became very clear. Education in the hope that history teaches us a lesson needs political and financial support. All the survivors present agreed that the reactions of students vary, depending on their social/ethnic/cultural background. The fact that the world leaders at this conference commit themselves to Holocaust education is important, but the educators are the ones to make this a reality. This means not only spreading knowledge. How to work with testimonies in the future will have to be the subject of further debate. Katja Scheel >> Back to top |
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Introduction Opening Session: Messages and speeches Plenary Sessions: Messages and speeches Workshops, Panels and Seminars
Other Activities |
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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 | |||||||||