Challenging myths and misconceptions: Understanding the Nazi camps and the Holocaust

Leading historians discuss the challenges and future of Holocaust education

Date: Monday 21 November
Time: 6pm-8pm
Location: Macmillan Room, Senate House, University of London

Book this event for free, through Eventbrite,

Is Holocaust education failing? Many children currently leave school without a clear understanding of the Holocaust: they are confused about the perpetrators, about the concentration camps and their function.  A major national student survey, carried out last year by the UCL Centre for Holocaust Education, concluded that ‘despite the Holocaust being a staple in the curriculum for almost 25 years, student knowledge and conceptual understanding is often limited and based on inaccuracies and misconceptions’. These gaps in knowledge are forcing us to reflect on how we teach young people at school and university about the camps and the Holocaust. To draw lessons from Nazi camps, we first have to understand their history.

This event will bring together leading historians and educators to consider:

• Which education methods are most appropriate, at a time when the last survivors are falling silent?
• Does a focus on individual victims and perpetrators help popular understanding?
• How can we harness new technologies to further knowledge?
• What, if any, wider lessons can be drawn from Nazi violence?

The event will also see the unveiling of a major new website on the history of the Nazi camps. The website, funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council and directed by Professor Nikolaus Wachsmann (author of prize-winning book KL. A History of the Nazi Concentration Camps), is the first major authoritative online resource about the camps, featuring original documents, video testimonies, lesson plans and more.

Professor Wachsmann said: “The SS concentration camps are symbols of Nazi evil, a global measure for judging inhumanity. And yet, despite all the school lessons, books and documentaries, popular understanding of the camps remains sketchy, especially among the young.  Our panel of experts will discuss how new resources and approaches can further Holocaust education and improve understanding of the camps among the next generation.”

Panel

• Sir Richard J. Evans is President of Wolfson College, Cambridge, and former Regius Professor of History. His most recent book is The Pursuit of Power: Europe, 1815-1914 (2016)
• David Feldman is Director of the Pears Institute for the study of Antisemitism and Professor of History at Birkbeck, University of London
• Tom Haward is Lecturer in History and Holocaust Education at the UCL Centre for Holocaust Education, London
• Yiftach Meiri works in the European Department at the International School for Holocaust Studies in Yad Vashem, Jerusalem, where he heads the UK desk.
• Nikolaus Wachsmann is Professor in Modern European History at Birkbeck, University of London, and the author of KL. A History of the Nazi Concentration Camps (2015)
• Kim Wünschmann is DAAD Lecturer in Modern European History at Sussex University, and the author of Before Auschwitz: Jewish Prisoners in the Prewar Concentration Camps (2016)