There’s a small phrase in the national curriculum that says a lot about how Holocaust education is viewed at a policy level in England.
The key stage 3 programme of study for history states that “pupils should be taught about challenges for Britain, Europe and the wider world 1901 to the present day”, and then goes on to list events that department heads might choose to cover, “in addition to studying the Holocaust”.
With those words, the national curriculum sets the Holocaust apart from any other historical event. Unlike teaching about the Norman Conquest, the Black Death and even the First World War, teaching about the Holocaust is a statutory requirement - and has been since 1991.
Yet, according to a recent survey examining Holocaust knowledge and awareness, there are huge gaps in many people’s understanding of this topic: 52 per cent of UK adults do not know that 6 million Jewish people were murdered during the Holocaust, while 9 per cent are convinced that the entire event is a myth.
The survey, which was conducted on behalf of the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany (also known as the Claims Conference), involved researchers conducting 2,000 interviews with adults aged 18 and over between 29 September and 17 October 2021.
Not only did the researchers find “a surprising lack of awareness of key historical Holocaust facts”, they also found that a majority of UK respondents (57 per cent) believe that fewer people seem to care about the Holocaust today than they used to, and 56 per cent believe that something like the Holocaust could happen again today.
These results are concerning, but there is a positive side to the picture: the survey also revealed that 88 per cent of respondents agreed that the Holocaust should be taught in schools, highlighting a desire to educate younger generations about its causes and consequences.
But just how should schools approach teaching about such a challenging topic?
Teaching about the Holocaust: key principles
Ruth-Anne Lenga has been working towards answering this question for some time. She is associate professor and programme director at the UCL Centre for Holocaust Education, where she and the Centre’s team of experts deliver “research-informed teacher training” and supports schools through year-long partnerships to create “Beacon Schools”, which act as training hubs for teachers in other schools.
Through this work, the Centre has identified the “critical features” essential for Holocaust education.
First and foremost, Lenga says, “teaching should seek to impart robust historical knowledge and help develop understanding of that knowledge”, building on “eyewitness testimony of those that directly experienced the Holocaust”.
The aim here is to step away from what Lenga describes as “perpetrator-led narratives”: stories of the Holocaust that focus on the actions and emotions of the Nazi aggressors, rather than those of their victims - as can be found in some older textbooks and resources that are still in wide circulation.
The next key principle is to contextualise the sense of loss caused by the Holocaust. This means spending time learning about who the Jews of Europe were as people and what contribution they made to society.
“In order for our teachers and students to understand truly what is lost, and why this mass atrocity in human history is given the reference of ‘the’ Holocaust…we need to understand Jewish people before the Holocaust - their life, their culture, their dreams, their hopes, their ordinariness,” Lenga says.
The third principle is that teachers themselves need to become aware of common misconceptions about Jewish people and the Holocaust that “find their way into our classrooms, into our textbooks, into our films and novels”.
For example, when the centre conducted surveys with young people in 2016, respondents were asked “Who is responsible for the Holocaust?”. For most, the go-to answer was simply “Hitler” or “Hitler and the Nazis”. The true picture, however, is a lot more complicated.
“[From the survey], there didn’t seem to be a clear understanding of the reality, which is far more unsettling and far more uncomfortable: that in every country that there was German occupation, there was complicity and collaboration by ordinary people,” says Lenga.
Both teachers and students need to start with a solid foundation of historical knowledge, she continues, “so they are not building knowledge on top of misconceptions”.
There should also be space to “learn about Jewish agency, Jewish action during the Holocaust, and Jewish resistance, as well as accounts of non Jews who risked their lives to help those in danger,” she adds - this is another important principle.
And finally, Lenga stresses the importance of helping students to recognise that when the Second World War ended, the Holocaust didn’t simply “end” at the same time.
“It’s important for young people to understand the reality of surviving genocide, and that that comes at a cost in terms of long-term trauma which can filter down to the next generation,” she says.
According to Lenga, these principles are “imperative” for best practice. But how should schools go about incorporating them into their teaching?
Putting research into practice
CORE Education Trust, a multi-academy trust based in Birmingham, offers a case study of what an approach based on Lenga’s advice looks like.
The trust launched a Holocaust education initiative, Echo Eternal, in 2018, which gives students the opportunity to create original music, lyrics, art and drama directly inspired by the “authentic artefacts” of survivor testimony.
These “echoes” are then shared as recordings or performances. Not only do they help students to learn more about the Holocaust, but they can also bring comfort to the survivors who have given their time to take part, says Adrian Packer, the trust’s CEO.
Packer came up with the idea for the programme after he was struck by the fact that during Holocaust remembrance events students are often asked to take part in moments of silence. And, while appropriate, he felt that silence could become “a void”.
Put simply, students were being asked to reflect on the atrocity but with no outlet for their thoughts or feelings. The solution, he thought, was to develop a programme of “dynamic commemoration”, which would “create a relationship between a student and a survivor” and give the students the opportunity to share “how it makes them feel, on their terms”.
In the four years that it has been running, Echo Eternal has brought together many survivors and students, and utilised the support of artists of every discipline. But the programme also strives to follow the best practice principles that Lenga has outlined above.
Jamie Barton, head of school at Jewellery Quarter Academy (JQA), which is part of the CORE trust, points out that academies are not actually required to teach the Holocaust, as they do not have to follow the national curriculum - but he believes it is too important an event to ignore. And while schools don’t have to develop an arts-driven programme like Echo Eternal, he maintains that the most useful teaching approach will always be “engaging with authentic testimony and artefacts and bringing them to life, in a way that enables students to connect with them”.
But preparation for staff is key here, he explains. JQA was previously one of the Centre for Holocaust Education’s Beacon Schools, which means that teachers have spent time working in partnership with specialist Holocaust educators.
It’s important that this “groundwork” is laid, says Packer, to make sure that staff feel confident teaching such a sensitive topic. And, crucially, teachers’ own Holocaust learning needs to “start and end with testimony”, just as students’ learning does, he suggests.
But while Lenga is confident that teachers will continue to do “incredible things” when sharing survivors’ stories with their classes, she also believes that these testimonies need to be handled with care. And she has concerns, too, about what will happen when there are no more survivors to come into schools.
“We also face [the post-survivor] era with a touch of trepidation, because it doesn’t take much to open up the flood gates of Holocaust denial and anti-semitism,” she says.
To this end, she clarifies, survivors, their personhood and their testimony, should always be discussed “accurately and responsibly”, with any creative response adhering to both the letter and spirit of their story.
But as long as the process is handled sensitively, she agrees that connecting students with survivors is a great place for schools to start when it comes to improving their Holocaust education.
Programmes such as Echo Eternal encourage young people to “connect with survivors as individuals” because, as Packer explains, “[ultimately] the Holocaust is about human beings and individuals”.
However, the role of teachers should also not be understated, adds Lenga, as even once Holocaust survivors are physically gone, “we have faith in teachers to keep them alive” for future generations of students.
Molly Bolding is a freelance journalist, inclusion consultant and online educator
