This study employs qualitative methods to investigate the types of learning that occurred when students in a single school encountered the Holocaust. The study explored the experiences of 48 students, together with two of their teachers and a Holocaust survivor who visited the school annually to talk to the students. A thematic analysis was conducted to identify prevalent similarities in the students’ responses. Three themes were identified, analysed and discussed. The three themes were: ‘surface level learning’ (their academic knowledge and understanding of the Holocaust), ‘affective learning’ (their emotional engagement with the topic) and ‘connective learning’ (how their encounter with the Holocaust fitted their developing worldview). The first theme revealed that students had a generally sound knowledge of the Holocaust, but there were discrepancies in the specifics of their knowledge. The second theme revealed that learning about the Holocaust had been an emotionally traumatic and complicated process. It also revealed that meeting a Holocaust survivor had a significant impact upon the students, but made them begin to question the provenance of different sources of Holocaust learning. The third theme showed that students had difficulty connecting the Holocaust with modern events and made flawed connections between the two. Finally, the study examines the views of the Holocaust survivor in terms of his intentions and his reasons for giving his testimony in schools. The study’s conclusions are drawn within the context of proposing a new conceptualisation of the Holocaust as a ‘contested space’ in history and in collective memory. A tripartite approach to Holocaust Education is suggested to affect high quality teaching within the ‘contested space’ of the event.

“Studying the Shoah (Holocaust) forces students to consider what it means to be human and humane by examining the full continuum of individual behavior, from ultimate evil to ultimate good” (Lindquist, 2011, p. 26). The Pebbles for Peace project was created with the intention to explore these character extremes and to provide tangible examples of choices that can be made in life. This thesis is an autoethnographic exploration of the Pebbles for Peace project that will include the researcher’s narrative reflection on her personal journey through education, specifically Holocaust education, as well as observations of the impact on classroom participation in the project.

“Studying the Shoah (Holocaust) forces students to consider what it means to be human and humane by examining the full continuum of individual behavior, from ultimate evil to ultimate good” (Lindquist, 2011, p. 26). The Pebbles for Peace project was created with the intention to explore these character extremes and to provide tangible examples of choices that can be made in life. This thesis is an autoethnographic exploration of the Pebbles for Peace project that will include the researcher’s narrative reflection on her personal journey through education, specifically Holocaust education, as well as observations of the impact on classroom participation in the project.

Museums today frequently consider education as one of their priorities. As such, museum administrators will provide resources, field trips, or professional development opportunities to support teachers and schools. In an era of high-stakes testing, museums, like schools, are also influenced by standards that may dictate what information is taught and when. Therefore, to remain relevant and useful to school systems, museums have altered their educational practices to align with standards. Some museums choose to provide professional development workshops for educators that focus on a topic included within those standards. The Holocaust, a topic that is mandated by over 30 states, is an example of one such topic—albeit one that might also be difficult or controversial to teach. A regional Holocaust Museum that has chosen to provide a weeklong professional development opportunity for educators on teaching the Holocaust serves as an example of a museum providing support to local school divisions. However, the literature indicates that museums and teachers, while both working toward the goal of educating students, often have little communication with each other. While multiple studies have examined how teacher participants react to professional development workshops, far less attention has been paid to those that plan such opportunities. The multi-tiered issue of interest, then, is that little is known about how museum educators plan a Holocaust-related professional development opportunity, what role they play in workshop implementation, and what they consider to be crucial when preparing teachers to cover the topic This qualitative inquiry focused on understanding how museum educators planned and presented a weeklong Holocaust education workshop for teachers. The research question was developed to determine how museum staff members understand the Holocaust and Holocaust education, and how that understanding influenced their role when implementing the workshop. Data collection methods included observation and semi-structured interviews. Analysis methods utilized in this study included first and second cycle coding methods, as well as episode profiles for each participant. The key finding from this investigation suggests that museum educators' understanding of the Holocaust and Holocaust education greatly shaped their planning processes, as well as the role they fulfilled in workshop implementation. Though museum staff members agreed that the Holocaust is difficult knowledge, they each approached the topic and how it should be taught in a different manner. The implications of this study, its limitations, and suggestions for future research are detailed herein. / Ph. D.

O Holocausto como Tema nos Livros Didáticos Brasileiros. Realidades e alternativas, orienta-se, em sua totalidade, para dois momentos: o da análise e o da proposta. No primeiro momento, o da análise, o estudo buscou definir, em primeiro lugar, de que maneira os livros didáticos abordam o tema, principalmente no que se refere ao protagonismo dos judeus como alvo de um genocídio sem precedentes na história da humanidade. Ao mesmo tempo, a atenção concentrou-se na presença de elementos que, muitas vezes, com o intuito de descomplicar, facilitar ou popularizar o ensino do Holocausto, resultam em sua banalização. Por último, a análise apontou a verificar a existência de elementos de instrumentalização no contexto do discurso do antissemitismo contemporâneo ou antissionismo. No segundo momento, o da proposta, apresentamos um projeto-piloto para o desenvolvimento de materiais através dos quais a história do Holocausto é contada com base no testemunho de um sobrevivente radicado no Brasil. Para tal fim, utilizamos entrevistas feitas no âmbito do Projeto Vozes do Holocausto, do Núcleo de Estudos Arqshoah/LEER/USP. Com base nos testemunhos, buscamos estabelecer a simbiose com fatos, documentos, personagens e lugares históricos. Dessa maneira, aos dizeres das testemunhas, enlaçaram-se os saberes da historiografia de modo a estabelecer um diálogo que tenta devolver às vozes dos sobreviventes ao menos parte do protagonismo que, como pudemos detectar na fase de análise, encontra-se ausente nos livros didáticos. / The Holocaust as a Theme in Brazilian Textbooks. Realities and Alternatives, is oriented towards two moments in the realm of Holocaust education: an analysis and a proposal. The analysis seeks to determine, first, how the theme is approached in Brazilian schoolbooks, especially in terms of the role attributed to Jews as targets of an unprecedented genocide in the history of humanity. At the same time, another aspect was taken into account. It relates to a practice, common among educators, that, although aimed at untangling, facilitating or even popularizing the teaching of the Holocaust, holds at its core the seeds for a potential banalization. Finally, we focused on trying to detect if the texts, in some way, instrumentalize the discourse in order to fit certain ideologically-charged narratives that could be linked to the context of contemporary antisemitism or antizionism. The second moment in this dissertation - the proposal - constitutes in fact a pilot project that approaches the history of the Holocaust through the voice of a survivor. For that purpose, we worked with witnesses living in Brazil interviewed by the researchers of the Projeto Vozes do Holocausto (Voices of the Holocaust Project, LEER/Arqshoah/USP). Based on those testimonies, we sought to establish a symbiosis with facts, documents, characters and historical places connecting the saying of the witnesses to the knowing of historiography in an attempt to establish a dialogue that gives back to the survivors voice its central role.

Philosophiae Doctor - PhD / This dissertation examines the development of Holocaust education in South Africa, specifically in the period of political transition to democracy and the two decades after apartheid. The history of placing the Holocaust in post-apartheid South Africa shows the dynamics and tensions of identity construction by the state, communities and individuals as the country emerged from a history of violent conflict. Holocaust education was claimed by the newly democratic state as a vehicle of reconciliation. Using archival material, interviews and secondary sources, I examine how a minority community’s project of building a permanent Holocaust centre, came to be considered as part of a national project of reconciliation. I consider the impact of this framing of Holocaust education and the tensions that arose as the Cape Town Holocaust Centre’s founders attempted to define and contain, the place of apartheid in Holocaust memory. Holocaust education shaped the development of post-apartheid identities. It contributed to a collective memory of apartheid by suggesting a particular collective memory of the Holocaust. The Cape Town Holocaust Centre provided the South African Jewish community with a legitimate identity in post-apartheid South Africa and a way to bypass an examination of the implications of having benefited from apartheid. I examine the tensions and contradictions within this construction of the collective memory of the Holocaust and apartheid, and consider the implications for the process of justice, memory and history in South Africa as it emerged from apartheid.

O Holocausto como Tema nos Livros Didáticos Brasileiros. Realidades e alternativas, orienta-se, em sua totalidade, para dois momentos: o da análise e o da proposta. No primeiro momento, o da análise, o estudo buscou definir, em primeiro lugar, de que maneira os livros didáticos abordam o tema, principalmente no que se refere ao protagonismo dos judeus como alvo de um genocídio sem precedentes na história da humanidade. Ao mesmo tempo, a atenção concentrou-se na presença de elementos que, muitas vezes, com o intuito de descomplicar, facilitar ou popularizar o ensino do Holocausto, resultam em sua banalização. Por último, a análise apontou a verificar a existência de elementos de instrumentalização no contexto do discurso do antissemitismo contemporâneo ou antissionismo. No segundo momento, o da proposta, apresentamos um projeto-piloto para o desenvolvimento de materiais através dos quais a história do Holocausto é contada com base no testemunho de um sobrevivente radicado no Brasil. Para tal fim, utilizamos entrevistas feitas no âmbito do Projeto Vozes do Holocausto, do Núcleo de Estudos Arqshoah/LEER/USP. Com base nos testemunhos, buscamos estabelecer a simbiose com fatos, documentos, personagens e lugares históricos. Dessa maneira, aos dizeres das testemunhas, enlaçaram-se os saberes da historiografia de modo a estabelecer um diálogo que tenta devolver às vozes dos sobreviventes ao menos parte do protagonismo que, como pudemos detectar na fase de análise, encontra-se ausente nos livros didáticos. / The Holocaust as a Theme in Brazilian Textbooks. Realities and Alternatives, is oriented towards two moments in the realm of Holocaust education: an analysis and a proposal. The analysis seeks to determine, first, how the theme is approached in Brazilian schoolbooks, especially in terms of the role attributed to Jews as targets of an unprecedented genocide in the history of humanity. At the same time, another aspect was taken into account. It relates to a practice, common among educators, that, although aimed at untangling, facilitating or even popularizing the teaching of the Holocaust, holds at its core the seeds for a potential banalization. Finally, we focused on trying to detect if the texts, in some way, instrumentalize the discourse in order to fit certain ideologically-charged narratives that could be linked to the context of contemporary antisemitism or antizionism. The second moment in this dissertation - the proposal - constitutes in fact a pilot project that approaches the history of the Holocaust through the voice of a survivor. For that purpose, we worked with witnesses living in Brazil interviewed by the researchers of the Projeto Vozes do Holocausto (Voices of the Holocaust Project, LEER/Arqshoah/USP). Based on those testimonies, we sought to establish a symbiosis with facts, documents, characters and historical places connecting the saying of the witnesses to the knowing of historiography in an attempt to establish a dialogue that gives back to the survivors voice its central role.

This qualitative interview study explores the perceptions of five USC Shoah Foundation Master Teachers who integrate IWitness in teaching about the Holocaust. The study focused on the perceptions of teachers as their students interact with survivor and witness testimony in IWitness as well as how IWitness provides a framework for moral education in comparison to other primary sources. Data gleaned from this study demonstrates the influence of personalized learning through testimony-based education on the development of empathy in secondary students. As IWitness is a new resource that engages students with Holocaust survivor testimony in innovative ways, this study fills a gap by analyzing teacher perception of a resource that places students at the intersection of multi-literacies and citizenship education. Findings of this study suggest that the personalized nature of engaging with testimony in IWitness promotes student development of empathy through the interpersonal connections that students form with survivors and witnesses of the Holocaust. Participants suggest that by engaging students on the affective continuum of historical empathy, students demonstrate greater historical understanding and levels of care for the content and for people in society.

Teaching the Holocaust is a challenging task. Not only do educators have a responsibility to impart the historical information surrounding these events, but issues of humanity are also an important part of the lessons. As of 2001, Holocaust education has been mandated by at least 6 states in the United States. At least 11 others, including Tennessee, have task forces or commissions responsible for promoting Holocaust education and providing professional development opportunities and materials for teaching such units. It is conceivable that additional states will enact legislation requiring Holocaust studies. The purpose of this qualitative study was to explore methods of teaching Holocaust education in a variety of subject areas to secondary students in grades 7 through 12, as implemented by recipients of Tennessee's Belz-Lipman Holocaust Educator of the Year Awards. These individuals have been recognized, through an application and committee selection process, as outstanding and successful teachers in this field. The researcher interviewed 17 of the 39 award recipients from across the State of Tennessee to determine commonalities in the resources, materials, and instructional methods used by the teachers. The participants included 4 males and 13 females, representing language arts (8) and social science (8) teachers from the middle school and high school levels. One participant taught a class in which students could obtain credit in both academic areas. The findings of this study included the importance of teacher training in this area; participants spoke of regularly attending sessions offered by reputable Holocaust organizations. This study also found commonalities in resources and materials used, such as specific titles of poetry, literature, and movie selections. Additionally, instructional methods such as group discussions, writing assignments, student project activities, and assessment strategies were frequently discussed. The importance of personalizing Holocaust history was emphasized throughout the study. The results indicate that students and teachers benefited from these lessons. While the findings of this study significantly contribute to the field of Holocaust education in Tennessee, the need for additional research is also addressed. To ensure successful, meaningful, pedagogically sound lessons, attention to this topic must be an on-going endeavor.

Through the creation of a graphic novel based on a Romanian Holocaust survivor’s testimony, this study attempts to clarify the role of artistic creation in meaning-making during Holocaust and genocide education. In facilitating empathy and moral education, the creative process encourages a deeper exploration of these troubling topics than is possible within the confines of a traditional academic approach. In order to understand this process, I worked with the testimony of Zoly Zamir, who escaped Bucharest following the Iron Guard Rebellion of 1941. The creation of the graphic novel took me from Austin to Houston and Romania, where I sought to trace the echoes of history in architecture and environment. Translating Zamir’s story into word and image produced an empathetic bond to the narrative and the region, facilitating a deeper understanding of the hows and whys of the Holocaust. That engagement spurred a desire to continue to ask questions, to look beyond a regimented understanding and view the broader implications of the history. / text