Search Results (16)

In the wake of the Holocaust and the post-war reconstruction of Greece’s historic city centers, many Greek synagogues were demolished, abandoned, or appropriated, erasing centuries of Jewish architectural and communal presence. This study presents a thirty year-long research and documentation initiative aimed at preserving, recovering, and eventually digitally reconstructing these “lost” synagogues, both as individual buildings and within their urban context. Drawing on architectural surveys, archival research, oral histories, and previously unpublished materials, including the recently rediscovered Shemtov Samuel archive, the project grew through the use of technology. Beginning with in situ surveys in the early 1990s, it evolved into full-scale digitally enhanced architectural drawings that formed the basis for further digital exploration, 3D models, and virtual reality outputs. With the addition of these new tools to existing documentation, the project can restore architectural detail and cultural context with a high degree of fidelity, even in cases where only fragmentary evidence survives. These digital reconstructions have informed physical restoration efforts as well as public exhibitions, heritage education, and urban memory initiatives across Greece. By reintroducing “invisible” Jewish landmarks into contemporary consciousness, the study addresses the broader implications of post-war urban homogenization, the marginalization of minority heritage, and the ethical dimensions of digital preservation. This interdisciplinary approach, which bridges architectural history, digital humanities, urban studies, and cultural heritage, demonstrates the value of digital tools in reconstructing “lost” pasts and highlights the potential for similar projects in other regions facing comparable erasures. Full article

In this contribution, through literary content analysis, I examine the novel The Boy From Block 66: A WW2 Jewish Holocaust Survival True Story (2023). I am convinced that it should be included in literature classes dealing with modern historical issues, especially pertaining to the Shoah. For two excerpts from this novel, I present several questions and tasks, the aim of which is to guide pupils to an adequate understanding of the events of the Shoah. I am convinced that this narrative is the one in which the events that relate to the Shoah are presented authentically and in an attractive way for young readers, and whose presentation leads to a certain de-abstracting of these ideas. Full article

The Haredi community in Israel is the youngest community. It grows at a higher rate than that of the Arab population in Israel. The calls to introduce more secular education are motivated by both a desire to acculturate the Haredi population and bring it closer to the norms and values of the Israeli discourse and from a wish to integrate more people from this community into the job market. Calls to introduce more secular education in the Haredi system have seen constant resistance that has been documented in scholarship. In the U.S., the discussion on the correct role of general education started with a different frame of reference. The existence of meaningful religious education was put into question, and only after the holocaust did American Orthodoxy significantly expand its educational options. This text will describe the diverse spectrum of Haredi educational institutions and their approaches to secular education. I am using Monsey as a test case since it is a good representation of the kaleidoscope of Orthodoxy in the U.S., as far as the different communities are concerned. It is also a very decentralized community, since there is no dominant group in Monsey. This fact allows for more initiatives, including educational initiatives, to be undertaken. Full article

Tourism is one of the most effective and attractive tools for achieving many goals including educational. Learning and gaining knowledge by traveling have been present in human history for centuries. Education does so well in tourism because it is accompanied by human curiosity about the world. Tourism can teach natural, social, and historical sciences. It is an important tool for learning about the past that influences the present and the future, especially if it is a difficult past such as the memory of the Holocaust. Tourism can help to draw conclusions about the past as long as it contributes to the acquisition of specific knowledge. Considering this role of tourism, it is worth asking when tourism starts? Many authors see the beginning of tourism at the stage of gathering information. The main assumption of this publication can be summarized as the consideration that the quality of an educational tourist product depends on the availability of information, its quality, and the manner in which it is provided. Today, the most important information distribution channel is digital media, including both websites and social media. Well-provided information accelerates the development of a resource, destination, or region; at the same time, information provided incorrectly or a lack of information in the virtual space may be an inhibitor of the development of educational tourism. The aim of the article is to assess the manner of communicating information related to the Holocaust of World War II, which took place in Nazi German-occupied Poland. The study was conducted with the use of qualitative methods—expert assessment and assessment of the information transfer effectiveness based on the scoring method. The research material included existing websites presenting the resources and methods of operation of museums dedicated to the Holocaust located in Poland. During evaluation, particular attention was paid to the scope of information, methods of its transmission, its internationalization, and timeliness of activities, especially in the field of promoting elements of the offer related to education and shaping attitudes. The aim of the research was to organize the official Internet resources, classify them, and discuss the functioning of information on the Holocaust in the virtual space, so as to use the potential of information in the most effective way to create a product for educational tourism. Full article

This paper considers the presence and potential educational impact of national exhibitions within the Auschwitz Birkenau State Museum in Poland. It takes a constructivist, personal-theoretical approach, drawing from autoethnography to explore possible visitor experiences at two of the national exhibits. Through detailed reflection on the French exhibition (Block 20) and the Dutch exhibition (Block 21), the author conducts a thematic analysis on the content in order to consider the constructions and possible intentions of the narratives presented. This is used to consider how the (relatively unvisited) exhibitions might contribute to visitors’ developing understandings of the complex history of the Holocaust. Particularly, the author considers how the national exhibits might contribute to the education of young people at the museum, and, by extension, at other sites, memorials, or educational spaces. The paper concludes that the inclusion of these complex national narratives is vital in young people gaining an understanding of the Holocaust as a multi-layered event. The paper offers a model for enabling inclusive Holocaust Education that embraces: (1.) divergent historical narratives (such as those in the national exhibitions), (2.) young people’s emotional engagement and responses to those narratives, and (3.) the Holocaust (and its representations) as a ‘contested space’ of history. Full article

The Jewish architectural heritage is and will remain an integral part of the local cultural heritage, but part of it still needs to be discovered, rehabilitated, maintained and valued. For Oradea, a Central–Eastern European city, this challenge is very specific because the Jewish communities before World War II were very strong and prosperous and because of the current desire to assert the city in the tourism market through urban regeneration. The Jewish community of Oradea had an important representative in Éva Heyman, a child of the Holocaust, nicknamed “Anne Frank of Transylvania”, which became famous. At the age of 13 years, Éva Heyman kept a diary during the Jewish ghettos in Oradea. In addition to the diary, her story is about the house where she grew up, built in the Art Nouveau style at the center of Oradea. Even though this house is of inestimable value from an aesthetic and cultural point of view, very little is known among the local population. Moreover, it is not listed as a historical monument, and its current state of preservation is precarious. With the increasing importance of preserving cultural heritage and computer graphics development, the digitization of historical buildings began to be used more and more for evaluation, preservation and promotion. This paper attempts to highlight the story of Éva Hayman and the house where she grew up. The paper further presents the innovative methods by which it is desired to achieve the presented goal for this architectural jewel. The results show that three-dimensional digitization methods are powerful tools for preservation and use for the benefit of the general public, education professionals, administrators and investors, art historians, restorers, etc., who are concerned with the collection preservation, exploration and mediation of the Jewish cultural heritage. Full article

This work aims to address whether knowing what dark tourism is (or not) impacts rumination on sadness, self-hatred, hostility, psychological vulnerability, and tourist wellbeing, as well as practices and motivations for dark tourism. A quantitative approach, based on a survey of 993 respondents, reveals that women and more educated participants know more about dark tourism; people who know what dark tourism is have visited more Holocaust museums, sites of human tragedy and natural disasters, concentration camps, and prisons; show more curiosity, need to learn and understand, and need to see morbid things. A model was found showing that gender, age, know/do not know dark tourism, and motivations (curiosity, the need to learn, the need to understand, and pleasure) explained 38.1% of a dark tourism practice index. Most findings also indicate that rumination on sadness, self-hatred, hostility, and psychological vulnerability are associated with darker practices. Greater wellbeing was not found in participants who knew in advance what dark tourism was. Interestingly, participants who visit tragic human sites present higher values in hostility and tourist wellbeing than those who do not. In summary, people who visit more dark places and score higher on negative personality characteristics have higher values of tourist wellbeing. Full article

Much has been written about the representation of the Holocaust in Israel, but there is less awareness to its effects on attitudes toward democracy and the universal meaning of human rights. Representations of the Holocaust by Israeli socialization agents usually focus on hatred toward Jews, disregarding the broader theoretical-ideological context. This tendency is typical to groups that suffered such severe traumas in their past. Nonetheless, we argue that it does not allow a healing process and fosters a reduced perspective on the essential principles of democracy. It also particularizes the concept of human rights, thus excluding those of “others,” such as Palestinians. We further argue that a more extensive perspective on the Holocaust, which includes an understanding of Nazism within an ideological mosaic that denies democratic principles and humanity, may strengthen Israelis’ identification with democratic principles and universal human rights. We analyze the different approaches to teaching the Holocaust in the context of the collective trauma and explore their impact on society’s sense of victimhood and moral injury. The paper ends with a suggestion for further research that will explore the possibility that a school curriculum that emphasizes universal lessons will enable the memorialization of the Holocaust without succumbing to nationalistic perceptions. Full article

In recent years, there has been increased recognition of the significance and relevance of Holocaust studies to nurses. However, these studies are rarely integrated in the nursing curriculum, and even when they are, the focus is usually on healthcare personnel who collaborated with the Nazi regime. This article aims to bridge this gap by analyzing a comprehensive requisite curriculum on the Holocaust for graduate nursing students. We emphasize the work of Jewish healthcare professionals during the Holocaust and the dilemmas they faced, as well as the trauma and resilience of Holocaust survivors, their treatment today, and implications for treating other patients. This article examines how studying these issues affected the graduate students. It analyzes the reflective accounts written by the students, using qualitative content analysis and Grounded Theory. The findings suggest that students received tools to act professionally and empathetically while demonstrating greater sensitivity to the patients’ identity, past experiences, trauma, and how the hospital as a “total institution” affects them. Many of the students developed conscious leadership. The program used a personalized pedagogical approach that contributed to experiential learning but was also emotionally challenging for the participants. We recommend including Holocaust studies as a requisite component in nursing programs worldwide. Full article

With the passing of the last testimonies, Holocaust remembrance and Holocaust education progressively rely on digital technologies to engage people in immersive, simulative, and even counterfactual memories of the Holocaust. This preliminary study investigates how three prominent Holocaust museums use social media to enhance the general public’s knowledge and understanding of historical and remembrance events. A mixed-method approach based on a combination of social media analytics and latent semantic analysis was used to investigate the Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube profiles of Yad Vashem, the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, and the Auschwitz–Birkenau Memorial and Museum. This social media analysis adopted a combination of metrics and was focused on how these social media profiles engage the public at both the page-content and relational levels, while their communication strategies were analysed in terms of generated content, interactivity, and popularity. Latent semantic analysis was used to analyse the most frequently used hashtags and words to investigate what topics and phrases appear most often in the content posted by the three museums. Overall, the results show that the three organisations are more active on Twitter than on Facebook and Instagram, with the Auschwitz–Birkenau Museum and Memorial occupying a prominent position in Twitter discourse while Yad Vashem and the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum had stronger presences on YouTube. Although the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum exhibits some interactivity with its Facebook fan community, there is a general tendency to use social media as a one-way broadcast mode of communication. Finally, the analysis of terms and hashtags revealed the centrality of “Auschwitz” as a broad topic of Holocaust discourse, overshadowing other topics, especially those related to recent events. Full article

Every year around 3000 British school pupils and teachers visit the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum as participants on a Lessons from Auschwitz Project organized by the Holocaust Educational Trust. Each visit ends with a memorial ceremony held at the end of the railway tracks at Birkenau. This article analyses interview and survey data from participating students and educators to explore their experiences of these ceremonies. The research findings indicate that the context and content of the ceremony are significant for both groups, with a general consensus that the ceremony is an important and appropriate way to end the day visit to Poland and the museum. The students’ responses also particularly raise issues around their emotional engagement with the ceremony and the impact it had on them in this way. In conclusion, this article suggests how similar reflective spaces might be created in other educational contexts at similar sites of memory. Full article

The aim of my paper is to examine children’s literature written in Italy and centred on the Holocaust. It is quite common for people to deem the subject matter inappropriate for young audiences, whilst it is also considered disrespectful to write inventive literature for children about the death camps. Nevertheless, it seems necessary to inform children about such a major historical event. Moreover, the stories written on this subject aim to introduce children to themes like prejudice, discrimination and racism. My research focuses on the recurrent patterns that occur frequently in these books. In these books, the focus lies on the victims rather than the perpetrators. They deal with the story of a Jewish family and frequently feature a child as the protagonist. These books will undoubtedly provoke questions by young readers, but they are most likely best read with an adult who can answer any questions appropriately and deepen the historical frame. These narratives are important because educators have a responsibility to teach others and read about the Holocaust. Full article

Augmented reality is a field with a versatile range of applications used in many fields including recreation and education. Continually developing technology spanning the last decade has drastically improved the viability for augmented reality projects now that most of the population possesses a mobile device capable of supporting the graphic rendering systems required for them. Education in particular has benefited from these technological advances as there are now many fields of research branching into how augmented reality can be used in schools. For the purposes of Holocaust education however, there has been remarkable little research into how Augmented Reality can be used to enhance its delivery or impact. The purpose of this study is to speculate regarding the following questions: How is augmented reality currently being used to enhance history education? Does the usage of augmented reality assist in developing long-term memories? Is augmented reality capable of conveying the emotional weight of historical events? Will augmented reality be appropriate for teaching a complex field such as the Holocaust? To address these, multiple studies have been analysed for their research methodologies and how their findings may assist with the development of Holocaust education. Full article

Across Europe, and probably the world, messages of the extreme right surface with increasing and alarming regularity in both public and virtual space. Within the virtual space, geomedia are increasingly used in nationalist propaganda, a trend which is embedded in a wider development in public discourse, election results, and policies. In Austria and Germany, particular sensibilities due to the responsibility for the Holocaust have developed, leading to various specific education initiatives that address this part of history. This paper presents an activist learning environment using geomedia to deconstruct right-wing extremist discourses, and has been tested used in university settings in Salzburg and Vienna. Using a combination of Instagram and geospatial technologies not visible to learners, results of reflection and learning processes are analyzed qualitatively across two slightly different enactments of the learning environment. Experiences suggest an encouraging potential of geomedia use in critical learning processes, as long as the technology is hidden from learners, forming an incentive, support, and contextualization of the learning process. Full article

This reflective essay draws a sketch of the theoretical and philosophical foundations in preparation for conducting a research project that investigates how German school learners deal with the memories of Shoah survivors. The essay explores some communication challenges and opportunities presented by the use of the double linguistic medium—German and English. The central philosophical argument is that there is a conceptual conflation of and confusion around the word Geist (spirit/mind), and that the difference between the spirit and the mind needs to be explored and clarified. For this purpose Hegel’s thoughts on the spirit are considered and related to theories of memory. Also, Theodor Lessing’s reflections on the origins of hatred are touched upon, which he traces back to the splitting of the spirit from the mind. How the body, mind and spirit work together is highlighted with a biographical example of a descendant of a Nazi perpetrator. By way of conclusion, the philosophical and methodological implications for researching education about the Shoah are briefly discussed. Full article