Remembering & Rethinking 2025: Teaching and Learning About the Holocaust

CONTEXT

For decades, Holocaust educators have anticipated a time when it would become a necessity – due to our expanding historical distance from the Nazi era – to rethink how the Shoah is taught. That time has arrived. Meanwhile, as we are confronted with a global surge in antisemitism, big questions are being asked of the Holocaust educational sector regarding how our work should address this moment.

Fortunately, across our sector there are numerous initiatives which are already responding to these challenges. This is why the Association of Jewish Refugees (AJR) is pleased to host our next international forum, Remembering & Rethinking 2025: Teaching & Learning About the Holocaust, an event which brings together experts and stakeholders to share the learning they have gleaned from their years of experience.

EXPERTS & STAKEHOLDERS

The AJR is the organisation in the UK which brings together institutions from across the Holocaust remembrance and education sector. As the nation’s leading dedicated funder of Holocaust educational programmes, we have relationships with dozens of key organisations in the field. These partnerships are centred on a fundamental principle: that we must all be willing to share our learning. Which educational approaches work, and which do not? What are the emerging trends and challenges that impact upon our shared mission? Where are there mutually beneficial opportunities to uplift the work of other organisations, to share resources and share credit?

AN INTERNATIONAL FORUM

Remembering & Rethinking 2025 is the fourth in our series of international forums which began in 2019. Previous topics have been: The Kindertransport; Next Generations; and Testimony. Once again, this event will have a global dimension, bringing experts from around the world into contact and conversation with those in the UK, ensuring a truly international exchange of ideas.

FIRST SPEAKERS ANNOUNCED

We are pleased to anounce our first round of confirmed speakers, representing organisations including:

• Aberystwyth University
• Anne Frank House
• Anti-Defamation League
• The Association of Jewish Refugees (AJR)
• The Azrieli Foundation
• Claims Conference
• Facing History and Ourselves
• Florida International University
• Generation 2 Generation
• Holocaust Centre North
• Holocaust Educational Trust
• Landecker Digital Memory Lab
• The International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA)
• National Fund of the Republic of Austria for Victims of National Socialism
• National Literacy Trust
• Northumbria University
• Pears Foundation
• Public First
• René Cassin
• Scottish Jewish Heritage Centre
• Sir Martin Gilbert Learning Centre
• UCL Centre for Holocaust Education
• USC Shoah Foundation
• University of Sussex
• University of Sydney
• University of Winchester
• Vision Schools Scotland
• Voices of the Holocaust
• Wiener Holocaust Library
• Yad Vashem

PANELS, TALKS AND WORKSHOPS INCLUDE:

• Teaching digital natives about the Holocaust
• Educating about and against antisemitism
• From the funders’ perspective
• International cooperation on Holocaust education, research and remembrance
• Bringing archives to life in the classroom
• Trauma-Informed Approaches to Holocaust Education
• New pedagogical research for new challenges
• Students’ understandings about the Holocaust
• The impact of Holocaust Education on Antisemitic attitudes
• Emerging historical research
• The Holocaust across the curriculum
• Holocaust Testimony Archives and Learning Resources
• Teaching the Holocaust through a local lens
• The Holocaust, human rights and civil rights
• Updating the IHRA Teaching Guidelines
• Educating at Holocaust sites
• Sharing ‘next generation’ oral histories
• The changing global landscape
• Holocaust memory from outside the traditional centres of geographical, cultural, and historiographical focus
• Interrogating the Tensions Between Teaching and Learning about the Holocaust, and Digital Media