Titled “Teaching About the Holocaust Through the Lens of Women’s Resistance and Human Rights,” the seminar took place at the Lithuanian Jewish Community in Vilnius. Organizers invited European teachers who had participated in TOLI Institute seminars in their own countries and implemented projects on Jewish history, the Holocaust, and human rights.
The seminar featured lectures by Lori Weintrob (USA) and Peninah Zilberman (Romania), as well as methodological workshops organized by TOLI Institute representatives: Oana Nestian-Sandu, Oana Bajka, and Deborah Lauter. Teachers had the opportunity to meet Faina Kukliansky, the Head of the Lithuanian Jewish Community, who shared stories about her parents, Holocaust survivors.
Teachers from different countries explored Vilnius’s Old Town, the former site of the Vilnius Ghetto, and learned the stories of two women who survived the Holocaust: Fania Brancovskaja and Rachel Margolis. Many guests saw a “malina,” or hiding place, for the first time during their visit to the Jewish Culture and Information Center on Rūdninkų Street. Before visiting Paneriai, the teachers received recommendations on how to prepare their students for visits to historical sites recounting painful events. Thus, while visiting the Paneriai Holocaust Victims Memorial, the teachers were both listeners and active researchers, seeking answers about this place’s tragic history.
At the international seminar, teachers shared their experiences and presented completed projects to one another, providing an opportunity to draw on ideas that could be implemented in other countries and among other student communities.
Thirty teachers from fifteen European countries attended the seminar. Lithuania was represented by four teachers from Tolerance Education Centers: Dalia Uržaitė from Kaunas “Nemunas“ School, Arūnė Vaičiūnaitė-Levuškinienė from the Meilė Lukšienė Education Center and the “Sūduva” Gymnasium, Karolina Dambrauskaitė from the “Saulėtekis” Gymnasium in Šiauliai, and Arnoldas Riekumas from the “Naujamiesčio“ School in Vilnius. The seminar was organized by the TOLI Institute (USA), in cooperation with the International Commission Secretariat and the Lithuanian Jewish community. The international seminar was organized in theframework of project CARE – Combating Holocaust Denial and Distortion through Active Citizenship, Remembrance and Education, which was co-financed by the European Union and implemented by a consortium of organizations in Europe, coordinated by the Intercultural Institute Timisoara, in partnership with TOLI. The seminar also was supported by Claims Conference.
More details about this event are available here.
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