On May 29th – 30th of 2018 an international seminar “The Holocaust history: understanding and presentation in the educational process” was held in Alytus region, Vladas Mironas Gymnasium in Daugai. The seminar was a panel workshop, attended by teachers, educators and museum workers, who were on traineeship in the summer of 2017 at Yad Vashem – International school of Holocaust studies in Israel.
Algirdas Vrubliauskas, the Mayor of Alytus, welcomed the opening of the seminar. The mayor was pleased that teachers from all over Lithuania had come to Daugai. Vladas Mironas Gymnasium from Daugai (Alytus region) showed the performance “It did happen once, it did …” for the participants of the event. This performance was created by the Gymnasium Tolerance Education Center in the framework of the project “Once you open the pages of the Jewish literature”. The premiere of the performance was on April 11th in Vilnius, on the eve of the Yom Hashoah Day.
During the 2 days of the seminar teachers shared their experiences – presented the activities implemented during the school year of 2017-2018. A historian Arturas Svarauskas, who participated in the seminar, gave a lecture on the mood of the Lithuanian society, which dominated in 1939-1941, and relations between Lithuanians, Jews and Poles. A lecturer from Israel, Noa Sigal, introduced films on the theme of people saving the Jews and, together with the teachers, analyzed the dilemmas faced by people, rescuing the Jews.
The participants of the seminar were invited to 2 excursions: getting acquainted with the history of the Jews in Daugai and the surviving heritage and visiting the town of Merkine to get acquainted with the history of this town, where a large Jewish community resided before the Second World War.
The seminar was organized by the International Commission for the Evaluation of the Crimes of the Nazi and Soviet Occupation Regimes in Lithuania in cooperation with Yad Vashem – the International School of Holocaust Studies and Tolerance Education Center of Vladas Mironas Gymnasium in Daugai, Alytus region.
