As the Witnesses Fall Silent: 21st Century Holocaust Education in Curriculum, Policy and Practice

This volume represents the most comprehensive collection of empirical research on the Holocaust and education around the world ever produced, and it comes at a critical time. As the world approaches the 70th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, and as the generations that survived, witnessed and perpetrated the Shoah pass from the earth, governments are charged with ensuring that the defining event of the 20th century takes its rightful place in the historical consciousness of its peoples.§§In addition, the issues are framed by some of the leading voices in the field, including Elie Wiesel and Yehuda Bauer.§§Providing an adequate and appropriate education about the Holocaust is no simple task. The Shoah was unprecedented in its scope, its horrors, and its complexity. Engaging the Holocaust is exceptionally difficult, emotionally fraught, and critically important. Both meaningful and powerful, it can be damaging if mishandled and transformative when done exceptionally well. Indeed, our contributors document both profound resistance and resentment in bearing the legacy of the Holocaust in some contexts, and profound engagement and development in others.§§The policies and practices of Holocaust education around the world are as diverse as the countries that grapple with its history and its meaning, trying to accommodate and reconcile national histories and memories with the international realities of the Holocaust and its implications for the present. These efforts take place at a time when scholarship about the Holocaust itself has made great strides, progress that will further inform the development of Holocaust education. Holocaust education is of such significance, so rich in meaning, so powerful in content, and so diverse in practice that the need for extensive, high quality empirical research is critical. This book provides exactly that.§