Associate Professor (Teaching)

Ruth-Anne Lenga, OBE

Ruth-Anne is a senior figure and founder member of UCL’s Centre for Holocaust Education. Having led the Centre’s educational vision and programme for a number of years, she currently leads its international developments, its pioneering work in antisemitism prevention, and is an active member of the UK delegation to the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA).

With over 35 years’ experience, Ruth-Anne is one of the longest serving Holocaust educators in the country and is a longstanding academic of UCL’s Institute of Education (IOE).  Her services to Holocaust Education earned her the Order of the British Empire in the King’s New Years Honours in December 2025 and many of her former students have become eminent senior leaders in education. Ruth-Anne began her teaching career at a Jewish voluntary-aided school in London where she introduced a multi- faith RE component into the established Jewish studies curriculum – a fresh (and disruptive) approach at the time. She went on to become Head of Learning at London’s Jewish Museum (The London Museum of Jewish Life), where she worked closely with survivors at a key turning point when many were only just beginning to speak about their life during and after the Holocaust. In particular, Ruth-Anne deepened her rare insights through building a kinship with a group of survivors who came to Britain as teenagers after the war including the late Sir Ben Helfgott, Jack Kagan, Solly Irving, Josef Perl, and Ziggi Shipper and in particular London-born Auschwitz survivor, Leon Greenman – whose detailed life story subsequently featured predominantly in the Centre’s offer and became the central narrative of a permanent exhibition she helped to create at the Jewish Museum - the first of its kind in the UK. Ruth-Anne authored other exhibitions including one entitled: Janusz Korczak Champion of the Child and interviewed extensively one of the only surviving graduates of Korczak’s Warsaw Ghetto orphanage. She joined the IOE in 1991 while continuing her role at the museum and after a short time was responsible for leading the PGCE and MA Religious Education programmes, bringing in Holocaust survivors to speak to beginning teachers during their training. She helped to establish UCL’s Centre for Holocaust Education in 2008, created the MA module, The Holocaust in the Curriculum, and played a key role in conceiving and developing the Centre’s Beacon School Programme. Ruth- Anne leads the Centre’s engagement with Holocaust survivors and their testimonies and has played a pivotal role in securing and leading national and international projects, including the DFE funded, Belsen75, and the OSCE-ODHIR/UNESCO training curriculum to address antisemitism. She has served as trustee of the National Holocaust Centre and Museum and is the co-founder of Core Academy Trust’s ‘Echo Eternal’ Holocaust Education Programme.

Ruth-Anne is invited to speak at Holocaust education conferences and delivers training courses to address antisemitism in many countries, working with UNESCO and ODIHR to influence ministries of education, policy makers as well as providing professional development for school leaders. Locally, she had provided advice to Number 10 on issues relating to survivor testimony, co- led a school-based research informed project entitled, Let’s talk about antisemitism with Outward Grange Academy Trust and advises organisations such as Palace Yard on projects relating to antisemitism prevention in education.  She is a UK IHRA delegate and in that role, she co-authored Recommendations for Teaching and Learning about the Persecution and Genocide of the Roma for teaching about the genocide of the Roma During the Nazi Era and played a leading role in the IHRA My Hometown international school network initiative which took place during the UK IHRA plenary. She is particularly interested in the degree to which students’ understanding of trauma, resilience and ‘survivor instinct’ evident from the life stories of many Holocaust survivors, can impact positively on emotional health and mental wellbeing. She has written about the controversies surrounding the use of atrocity images in Holocaust education, the distinctive contribution Religious Education plays in teaching and learning about the Holocaust and the need to recognise and teach about the genocide of Roma during the Nazi period.

Selected publications:

A relevant history curriculum starts with inclusivity Schools Article published in Schools Week 19th June 2025.

Teaching and Learning about the Persecution and Genocide of the Roma during the Nazi Era (co -authored 2024).

Lenga, R. ‘Seeing things differently: The use of atrocity images in teaching about the Holocaust' in Holocaust Education: Contemporary challenges and controversies (London: UCL Press 2020)

Foster, S., Pettigrew, A., Pearce, A., Hale, R., Burgess, A., Salmons, P. and Lenga, R. What do students know and understand about the Holocaust? Evidence from English Secondary Schools (2016). UCL Press.

 

Publications by: Ruth-Anne Lenga, OBE

  • What do students know and understand about the Holocaust? Evidence from English secondary schools

    The latest ground-breaking research from the Centre, published in October […]

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  • Teaching about the Holocaust in English Secondary Schools

    This ground-breaking report Teaching About the Holocaust in English Secondary […]

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