Human Rights Education and the Holocaust

Teachers may want to review the teaching foundations in human rights education and Holocaust education, which overlap significantly in their current teaching approaches, while differing in their focus.

Holocaust education encourages teachers to directly share the lived experiences of Jews who were persecuted and exterminated during World War Two. Recognizing that there is no one way to teach about the Holocaust, teachers are encouraged to use precise language and contextualize the historical content. Holocaust education fosters empathy through a textured knowledge of historical perspectives.

Human rights education encourages students to recognize that all individuals share universal rights, regardless of their time and place in history, and everyone shares a common responsibility to make human rights a reality. Human Rights Education includes both content (knowledge, values, and attitudes) and process (behaviours and actions) related to human rights. Moreover, human rights education emphasizes that students should seek to empower themselves and others through knowledge of how these rights must be respected.

Study of the Holocaust assists students think about the use and abuse of power, and the roles and responsibilities of individuals, organizations, and nations when confronted with human rights violations, while developing an understanding of the ramifications of prejudice, racism, antisemitism, and stereotyping in any society. It helps students develop an awareness of the value of diversity in a pluralistic society and encourages sensitivity to the positions of minorities. Additionally, human rights-based approach promotes social cohesion, integration, & stability; builds respect for peace and non-violent conflict resolution; contributes to positive social transformation; is sustainable; produces better outcomes for economic development; and builds capacity.

Teachers can bring together Holocaust education and human rights education by exploring how resistance can take many forms, including spiritual, religious, cultural, or artistic resistance, or resistance through the act of surviving. David Schaffer describes staying alive as one form of resistance.

A variety of resources exist if you would like to further explore alternative forms of Jewish resistance during the Holocaust.

Further Resources

“Music, Memory, and Resistance During the Holocaust”

“Non-Violent Resistance Among Jews During the Holocaust”

“Resisting the Nazis in Numerous Ways: Nonviolence in Occupied Europe”