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APRIL
12, 2004
UPDATED
APRIL 24, 2006
EDUCATION
Holocaust museums, education grow
 Since
1980, more than a dozen Holocaust museums have opened across the country, along
with dozens of education and research centers. As Holocaust Remembrance Day
is observed April 25, the museums are intensifying outreach to non-Jewish audiences
as they urge people to confront evil.
The museums include
the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum on the Washington, D.C., mall, which
is celebrating its tenth year of expanding programs and tough-to-get free tickets.
Its programs now include training law enforcement officers, U.S. military academy
students, and teachers and students from across the country.
Most museums emphasize
the universal lessons of the Holocaust - what a deadly mix hate and fear can
be for any group, not just Jews, and the steep cost of silent acquiescence.
The Museum of Tolerance
in Los Angeles boldly says it "was founded to challenge visitors to confront
bigotry and racism." The Holocaust
Museum Houston simply promotes "awareness of the dangers of prejudice,
hatred, and violence against the backdrop of the Holocaust."
The museums' growth
also bring questions, particularly as Holocaust survivors age and die: How much
emphasis should be put on victims, perpetrators and bystanders? Should museums
prescribe specific solutions, or simply explain history and let people come
to their own conclusions? How much should religion be emphasized? If the Holocaust
is used to inform current events, will its specific history be lost? Is it possible
to overemphasize - or commercialize - Holocaust education?
Why it matters
Tolerance - and the limits of it - is a challenging topic at a time where there
are deadly conflicts, discrimination, and divisive legislation and court rulings,
all tied to differences in religious beliefs, politics, ethnicity and economic
status.
Questions for
reporters
• Holocaust
museums and Jewish Community Centers usually know of local Holocaust survivors,
and many sponsor Yom Hashoah services that Holocaust survivors attend. Find
out who else comes to the services and why.
• If
there is a Holocaust museum in your area, find out how its exhibits, programs
and audience have changed since it opened. What is its stated mission? What
programs and exhibits does it have that reach out to non-Jews?
• Museums
often sponsor student art and writing competitions. Talk to the winners to see
what inspired them.
• Many
museums are initially financed by Holocaust survivors and their families, but
survivors are aging and dying out. Find out who else supports Holocaust museums
and education and why.
• Many
states support Holocaust education in different ways. New Jersey requires it
in all grade levels; other states require that it be taught in only in some
grade levels. Some states have created state commissions to create resources
for teaching the Holocaust; others have published study guides. Check what your
state requires or offers resources for, and find out how it affects students'
education.
• Talk
to teachers in area schools about how they teach about the Holocaust. What resources
do they use? How do they adapt lessons for different age groups? Have any teachers
had formal training, at a museum or elsewhere? Do they emphasis teaching history,
tolerance or both? How do the children react? Does the state finance, encourage
or require Holocaust studies?
• Have
parents or teachers expressed any concerns about Holocaust education materials
at museums or in schools?
• The
CANDLES Holocaust Museum in Terre Haute was destroyed by arson Nov. 20, 2003,
and is collecting donations to rebuild. (See news articles on the museum's web
site.) Have museums in your area experienced any problems?
Skip to background
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Click
the map for interview sources
in your state and region
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National and
international sources
•
Sara Bloomfield
is director of the United States
Holocaust Memorial Museum. She joined the museum during its planning stages
in 1986 and was named director in 1999. She says the museum's mission is unchanged,
but its methods have evolved to include more outreach and education through
research opportunities, teacher training, traveling exhibits and the web site.
Contact through Andrew Hollinger, 202-488-6133, ahollinger@ushmm.org.
• Edward Tabor Linenthal is Edward M. Penson Professor of Religion and
American Culture at the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh and author of Preserving
Memory: The Struggle to Create America's Holocaust Museum (Columbia University
Press, 2001) and The Unfinished Bombing: Oklahoma City in American Memory
(Oxford University Press, 2003). He co-edited American Sacred Space (Indiana
University Press, 1995). Contact 920-424-4407, etl@uwosh.edu.
• Peter Novick is professor emeritus of modern history at the University
of Chicago and author of The Holocaust in American Life (Houghton Mifflin,
2000), a book that explores how political aims have shaped U.S. views of the
Holocaust, including why the Holocaust was first hushed, and then later moved
to the center of American life. Contact through the history department, 773-702-8397.
• Alan Mintz is Chana Kekst Professor of Jewish Literature and chairman
of the department of Hebrew language at The Jewish Theological Seminary in New
York. He wrote Popular Culture and the Shaping of Holocaust Memory in America
(Samuel and Althea Stroum Lectures in Jewish Studies) (University of Washington
Press, 2001). Contact 617-965-1490, almintz@jtsa.edu.
• Elliott Dlin is director of the Dallas
Holocaust Museum, which is making plans to build a standalone museum downtown.
The museum provides guided tours for groups, public lectures and exhibits, and
other programming. Dlin, who worked at Yad
Vashem in Israel for 22 years, is completing a doctoral dissertation on
Holocaust museums, studying their locations, focuses and approaches. Contact
214-741-7500.
• Dr. William L. Shulman is president of the board of directors of the
national Association
of Holocaust Organizations and president of the Holocaust
Resource Center and Archives at Queensborough Community College, Bayside,
N.Y. Contact 718-281-5770.
• Michael
Berenbaum has worked as a consultant to Holocaust museums in addition to
being a teacher, film producer and author. Contact him in Los Angeles at 310-215-8101,
michael@berenbaumgroup.com.
• Steven Spielberg founded Survivors
of the Shoah Visual History Foundation in Los Angeles in 1994 to document
the experiences of Holocaust survivors and other witnesses. It has taped more
than 50,000 testimonies and produced films and classroom materials. Its mission
is to "overcome prejudice, intolerance and bigotry - and the suffering they
cause - through the educational use of the Foundation's visual histories." Contact
president and chief executive officer Douglas Greenberg or director of education
Kimberly Birbrower at 818-777-7802.
• Tim
Cole is a lecturer in social history at the University of Bristol in England
and author of Selling the Holocaust: From Auschwitz to Schindler: How History
is Bought, Packaged and Sold (Routledge, 2000), which questions whether
the Holocaust has become too commercialized. Contact 01-17- 928-9781, Tim.Cole@bristol.ac.uk.
Background
• Congress
voted unanimously to establish Holocaust Days of Remembrance in 1980. The annual
Holocaust Remembrance Day, or Yom Hashoah, falls on Tuesday April 25 this year.
• The Anti-Defamation League features online
and classroom resources for
Holocaust Remembrance Day.
• Read a
Feb.
10, 2006, Dallas Morning News story about efforts to counter people
- including the president of Iran - who deny that the Holocaust took place.
• There are about 30 Holocaust museums in the United States. The count
is tricky because some research and education centers or memorials may have
some exhibits but do not function primarily as a museum, and because some museums
emphasize the Holocaust but have wider missions. While museums are not required
to join the Association
of Holocaust Organizations, it provides the best snapshot of the nature
of Holocaust organizations in this country, from research archives to museums
to education centers.
• The Florida Center for Instructional Technology at the University of
South Florida's School of Education has posted an award-winning A
Teacher's Guide to the Holocaust.
• The U.S. Memorial Holocaust
Museum posts links to:
• A senior
honors thesis by University of California at Santa Barbara student examines
Holocaust education in American museums and the tension between teaching history
and tolerance. Jenna Berger's thesis, comparing the Holocaust Museum Houston and
the Museum of Tolerance in Los Angeles, was completed in June 2003.
• Read pro
and con
articles debating whether fourth-graders should be taught about the Holocaust,
posted on the web site of the Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies at the
University of Minnesota.
• Read the Anti-Defamation League's 2005
annual report on anti-Semitic incidents in the United States, which found
that incidents continued at " disturbing levels."
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