We were delighted to welcome Jeremy Leigh, who spoke on ‘Why not to travel to Poland: A broader approach to Holocaust visits’.

Jeremy, who emigrated to Israel from the UK in 1992 teaches Jewish History and Israel Studies at the Hebrew Union College, Jerusalem. He has been involved in the field of educational travel for the last 25 years and is the author of various publications on the subject, most recently ‘Location, Location, Location: A Practitioner’s Perspectives on Diaspora Jewish Travel’. Jeremy has worked extensively with British teachers on programmes in Poland, Berlin, Vilna and Budapest.

Of his lecture at the IOE Jeremy says, “I really really want to go to Poland now, I’ve heard it is much stronger than this, said an enthusiastic sixteen year old I recently took on a visit to Terezin. I groaned. There is much that is wrong with Holocaust educational travel including an over emphasis on the processes of persecution and killing. Just because Poland was the focal point for the Nazis does not mean it must be so for us. Without denying the significance of Poland travel, this session seeks to promote a broader and deeper understanding of what the pedagogy of travel has to offer the field of Holocaust education.”