An international seminar for teachers from Europe committed to teaching about the Holocaust and human rights took place in Zagreb, Croatia, on April 26-28.
The President of the Croatian Jewish Community, Ognjen Kraus, attended the opening of the seminar and spoke about the life of the Croatian Jewish community before World War II, the Holocaust, and the small Jewish community in Croatia today. Vesna Terselic, director of Documenta, TOLI’s partner in Croatia, spoke about commemorating the victims of the Holocaust.
Introducing the program and the idea of the international seminar, Oana Nestian-Sandu, Director of Educational Programs at TOLI Institute, emphasized that it is the duty of each one of us to act in the face of intolerance and evil – not to be a bystander, not to think that it does not concern me/us.
The workshop was rich in group work sessions where teachers discussed the differences and similarities in dealing with stereotypes, intolerance, and distortions of anti-Semitism and the Holocaust.
During the international event, participants had the opportunity to visit the former Jasenovac concentration camp, established by the Ustashe dictatorship in 1941, where Serbs, Jews, and Roma, as well as politically undesirable inhabitants of the independent state of Croatia, were imprisoned and killed until the spring of 1945.
On the last day of the seminar, teachers shared their experiences of their projects with their students in their own countries. This exchange of experiences allows teachers to learn about new approaches and to take home ideas for new projects. Two teachers from Lithuania, from schools with Tolerance Education Centers, took part in the international seminar: Ieva Kriaučiūnienė from Veršvų gymnasium in Kaunas and Vaidotas Pakalniškis from Lavoriškės gymnasium in Vilnius region. Together with Ingrida Vilkiene, TOLI’s partner in Lithuania and coordinator of the educational programs of the International Commission, they presented the projects implemented in Lithuania on the topic of Jewish history and the Holocaust.
The international seminar was organized in the framework of the project Remember the Holocaust-Act for Democracy, implemented by a consortium of European organisations, in partnership with TOLI – The Olga Lengyel Institute for Holocaust Studies and Human Rights, and co-financed by the European Union and by TOLI.
