by Claus-Christian W. Szejnmann (Editor), Paula Cowan (Editor), James Griffiths (Editor)
Book Review by Daniel Adamson, PhD Researcher at Durham University.
How young is too young? That is perhaps the most immediate question in mind as one embarks upon this new compendium of some fifteen essays that explore the under-researched area of Holocaust education for primary school pupils. Indeed, the advantages and difficulties of teaching about an event so terrible to an audience so young formed the centre of a provocative symposium held at UNESCO Headquarters in 2011.
This important work, however, provides a skilful rejoinder to any sceptics of the worth of primary school Holocaust education. Effective classroom practice is discussed, alongside the role of extra-curricular education and developments in the patterns of student perspectives. A convincing case is ultimately presented for the role of Holocaust education in ‘diffusing…anxieties and prejudices’ (p.v) amongst primary students, alongside the suggestion that technological developments are transforming the pedagogical landscape.
The collection could hardly have found a more suitable trio of editors than Claus-Christian W. Szejnmann (former Director of the Stanley Burton Centre for Holocaust and Genocide Studies), Paula Cowan (reader in Holocaust Education at the University of the West of Scotland), and James Griffiths (former Director of Learning at the National Holocaust Centre and Museum, UK). Cowan’s extensive previous work on the practicalities of engaging with sensitive issues in education – see the near-canonical 2012 book Teaching Controversial Issues in the Classroom – leaves her particularly well placed to act as a custodian for an assembly of new insights into Holocaust education at Key Stages 1 and 2.
The opening essay, co-authored by Simone Schweber and Irene Ann Resenly, presents an innovative exploration of the psychological impacts of Holocaust education. By conducting interviews with students who were themselves subjects of a study in 2000 investigating the responses of young pupils to Holocaust teaching, this new report acts as a remedy to the observation that ‘of the very few long-term studies of educational impact, none focus on the Holocaust’ (p.4). The results are illuminating. Schweber and Resenly’s research found that learning about the Holocaust in third-grade (eight and nine-year-olds) had a particularly profound impact on a Jewish student, to the extent that she now avoids ‘casual contact’ with Holocaust-related topics, lest a ‘depressive’ emotional response be triggered (p.12). Despite this, the student retains an acute appreciation of the historical significance of the Holocaust. The conclusions of the essay encapsulate a perennial dilemma within Holocaust education: is the risk of emotional intimidation amongst young children worth the potential gains in the development of their historical conceptualisations?
Part II (‘Pedagogy’) of the book moves on to consider the practicalities of primary Holocaust education, and as such provides perhaps the most transferable content for current educators. Amy M. Carnes, Kori Street and Claudia Ramirez Wiedeman utilise their collective experiences as museum educators at the University of Southern California Shoah Foundation, to reinforce recent genocide education literature that affirms the power of survivor testimonies as a classroom tool. The authors’ conclusion that first-hand testimony material is useful for deepening primary student understanding would benefit from placement in an even wider educational context. As is acknowledged, ‘measuring empathy is a complex outcome’ (p.35), but it would be intriguing to explore whether it is the emotional connections, or rather the narrative form of testimony resources that really captures the imagination of most primary school pupils.
Paula Cowan produces a convincing argument that primary Holocaust education represents a natural confluence with the semantics of ‘responsible citizenship’ that have proliferated in national curriculums since the turn of the millennium (p.41). Cowan builds on the influential findings of a major study of secondary students in England, conducted by the UCL Centre for Holocaust Education in 2016, to offer an insight into perceptions of primary Holocaust education and potential areas of unfamiliarity in need of development. The title of Cowan’s essay – ‘There’s No ‘J’ in The Holocaust’ – reflects the growing focus on non-Jewish victims of the Holocaust, including Roma, homosexuals and political prisoners. Equally, Cowan notes the dangers of uncontextualized reliance on fiction and film as teaching resources. Of the 9,500 British secondary-school students surveyed by the UCL Centre for Holocaust Education in 2016, 84.4% of pupils had encountered Boyne’s work as part of their studies.[1] The film critic Manonhla Dargis, in 2008, demurred that the film adaption of Boyne’s book ‘trivialised, glossed over, kitsched up, commercially exploited and hijacked the Holocaust’.[2]Cowan’s prioritisation of historical materials in the classroom appears sagacious: it follows that to learn from the Holocaust, students must first learn about the event.
Cowan then expands upon her opening contribution in a collaborative report authored with Graham Duffy, himself a primary school teacher, exploring the ways in which interdisciplinary approaches might be used to support primary Holocaust education. The reader receives the impression, however, that the results of a study conducted in a Renfrewshire leave Cowan and Duffy unconvinced that the deployment of literature, poetry or art in classroom settings should form anything other than a secondary complement to a primarily historical focus. To a certain extent, the words of the German sociologist Adorno come to mind: ‘no poetry after Auschwitz’.[3]
Within the realms of genocide education literature, despite concerns over interdisciplinary approaches, it is nonetheless widely acknowledged that Religious Education has an important role to play in deepening student understandings. Alasdair Richardson’s essay provides a cogent argument, thus highlighting the ‘unhelpful’ artificial divisions drawn between interrelated subjects such as History and R.E. (p.84). Richardson surmises that primary schools provide an ideal environment for children to acquire a basic understanding of the Jewish faith that will support their later consideration of the Holocaust. Richardson’s case could only have been strengthened further by some more detailed actual examples of successful interaction between R.E. and Holocaust education in primary schools.
Phillip Mittnik’s chapter on ‘Holocaust Education in Austrian Primary Schools’ provides a fascinating pedagogical insight into ‘the other side’. That is, from a British perspective, it is tempting to overlook the moral dilemmas faced by Holocaust educators operating in ‘perpetrator’ countries such as Austria or Germany. Mittnik’s genuinely original surveys of Austrian elementary school students highlight a tendency to attribute, misguidedly, the Holocaust solely to the ‘insane, bad, sick’ figure of Adolf Hitler (p.100). Mittnik’s research also identifies the strength of teachers’ political predisposition in guiding the course of Holocaust education. A divide is observable between ‘reserved’ educators, who are conservative in their exploration of complex socio-historical events, and ‘participative’ educators, who are more willing to engage with the difficult contemporary issues provoked by study of the Holocaust (p.101). The chapter makes good use of graphical representations throughout. Mittnik concludes by suggesting that Holocaust education can be used as a powerful tool in combatting the modern-day epidemic of antisemtism, and in doing so, supplies a salient reminder that the past and present remain inextricably intertwined.
Although Yael Richler-Friedman’s contributed essay is undoubtedly erudite, it represents somewhat of an anomaly within the otherwise lucid book as a whole. Rather dense discussions of development psychology in primary school pupils might well be more suited to a more esoteric pedagogical publication. The conclusions of the essay, however, are useful in corroborating the earlier studies of Schweber and Resenly, with the ‘great potential to cause trauma’ when teaching the Holocaust emerging as a key concern for teachers (p.120).
Part III, entitled ‘Museum Education’, taps into an increasingly central facet of Holocaust education: the quest to extend learning beyond the confines of classroom walls. Indeed, in the summer of 2018, the opening of a new Holocaust Exhibition and Learning Centre in Huddersfield added a new facet to the landscape of Holocaust education in the UK, in addition to established exhibitions at sites such as the Imperial War Museum in London.
The Dutch educationalist Pieter de Bruijn addresses the slippery notion of ‘cultural heritage’. The Holocaust, paradoxically, is often simultaneously used by teachers to ‘bring the past closer’ to students, whilst also being considered ‘too personal or engaging’ to expose to pupils in depth (p.129). Through analysis of studies undertaken in the Netherlands, de Bruijn illustrates how students deepened their conceptualisation of the Holocaust through visits to Memorial Centres, museums, and sites of former transit prisoner camps. De Bruijn appears to suggest that it is the ‘humanisation’ of the Holocaust, through engagement with personal stories, that is of most importance to primary Holocaust education. In other words, de Bruijn’s findings are symptomatic of the perpetual tension in History Education between sweeping narratives and the individual human experiences of the past. It might have been refreshing, however, for de Bruijn to reach a firmer conclusion regarding how these two approaches might be interwoven. By the end of the chapter, the reader is left with a slight, and misleading, impression that these pedagogical approaches are mutually exclusive.
In the troubled modern times of today, a chapter examining the potential impacts of community-based Holocaust education projects offers perhaps the most pertinent element of the book. Claus-Christian W. Szejnmann, Gary Mills, James Griffiths and Bill Niven essentially perceive such social schemes to be a major contributor to a wider acceptance of ‘people of difference’ (p.146). It is heartening to learn how the Holocaust, for so long used as a metaphor to confront social discrimination, is increasingly being actively utilised as a tool to combat prejudice. Education schemes at the National Holocaust Centre and Museum, have found that teaching primary students about the historical victims of the Holocaust has softened these same students’ treatment of minorities in their own generation. It is intriguing to read, however, the suggestion that ‘superficial’ prejudices amongst primary students are perhaps easier to tackle than more latent biases. For example, students demonstrated a readier willingness to discard discriminatory tendencies based on skin colour than those founded in cultural conceptions of groups such as gypsies and asylum seekers. The authors’ conclusion is a viable one: that the incorporation of citizenship schemes and cross-ethnic partnerships into primary education would mark a positive step towards preventing a recurrence of a tragedy such as the Holocaust.
International contextualisation of Holocaust education within the book is again supported by Madene Shachar’s fascinating chapter on museum spaces in Israel. Perhaps more than in Europe, Israel’s Holocaust museums unsurprisingly promote a culture of collective memory and shared experience. Israeli museums have tended towards attempts to connect primary students to the past through exhibitions specifically focussing on the plights of child victims. There is, perhaps, no experience as chastening as the thought that ‘it could have been me’. The commitment of Israeli museums to developing young students’ historical skills – alongside deepening narrative understandings of the Holocaust – is a lesson that British counterparts would be well-advised to heed. Israeli museums consistently ‘present…stories through authentic materials – diaries, testimonies, artefacts’, and encourage children to reflect on the nature of the historical sources they encounter. Although an insightful contribution, for the purposes of the overall scope of the book as a whole, Shachar’s essay may have benefitted from a closer focus on the ways in which primary school Holocaust education has been supported in an Israeli setting.
Cornelia Strickler and Sabrina Moisan deploy a detailed case-study of learning materials from the Montreal Holocaust Museum to build upon Pieter de Bruijn’s consideration of the use of human stories in Holocaust Education. In fact, Strickler and Moisan’s essay is so closely related to de Bruijn’s, one cannot help but wonder why the two chapters were not placed side by side in the book. It is explained how teachers have developed methods of focussing on single objects from the Montreal Holocaust Museum in order to act as symbols for the wider historical event in question. This pedagogical approach might be christened ‘historical synecdoche’. For instance, a single suitcase belonging to a Holocaust victim named Hana is used as a fulcrum around which teachers can pivot wider explorations of the genocide with primary students. This method of using an artefactual touchstone as a means of educational entry has also found sponsorship in the leading teacher development programmes offered by the UCL Centre for Holocaust Education, whereby a victim’s tattered shoe forms the basis of student-led explorations. Strickler and Moisan’s investigation offers convincing proof that there is much to be gained from partnerships between museums and schools in the enrichment of student experiences. More comment would have been welcome on the major new digital frontier – which is merely hinted at by the authors – which looks set to transform the ways in which museums can engage with visitors.
Lisa Phillips, writing from an Australian perspective, considers this concept of educational ‘entry points’ in greater detail. The content of her chapter is not dissimilar to that of Strickler and Moisan’s essay. As such, despite the merits of both contributions, it may have been a prudent editorial decision to include only one or the other within the book. Phillips’ chapter, however, offers particularly effective use of visual material, and supplies the useful suggestion that ‘more empirical evidence’ is required to gauge the true impact that museum-led educational programmes have on primary students (p.212).
The fourth and final part of the book (‘Student Perspectives’) shifts the emphasis from the educators to the educated. Rebecca Hale cites the insightful survey of secondary students conducted in 2016 by the UCL Centre for Holocaust Education as part of her convincing clarion call for more detailed empirical research into current primary school pupils’ understanding of the Holocaust. Hale’s conclusion is a logical one: that secondary student misconceptions and misunderstandings are likely, in part, to have manifested themselves during primary years. The necessity of deeper experimental investigation into primary Holocaust education is a recurring theme throughout the book.
in an engaging essay by Christian Mathis, the conceptions of British students are counterbalanced by study of those held by Swiss primary pupils. In Switzerland, public opinion tends towards disagreement with the principal of teaching the Holocaust to pupils ages younger than 11. However, Mathis’ investigations highlight how avoidance of teaching the Holocaust can, in many ways, be as damaging as factually-incorrect education. Without formal classroom guidance, Swiss children appear reliant on wider cultural capital as the source of their knowledge, and therefore simplify the Holocaust into a singular event that disregards ‘the systematic exclusion of the Jews, of the isolation, and of deportation’ (p.244). Intriguingly, Mathis’ identification of a ‘Hitler(centr)ism’ in student conceptions chimes with Mittnik’s earlier discussion of a similar pattern amongst Austrian schoolchildren. It is nonetheless encouraging that Mathis’ studies suggest that student misconceptions have not bled into blind nationalism. Most Swiss primary students ‘know that Switzerland permitted Germany to ship goods by railway’ and that ‘Switzerland was far from being uninvolved’ (p.247). Mathis’ conclusions imply that there is a conscious decision to be made. Teachers must either take authoritative control of the ‘taboo’ subject of the Holocaust, or else allow students’ early conceptions of the genocide to be shaped by environmental osmosis.
In the final essay of the book, Detlef Pech and Christine Achenbach – both researchers of primary education at the Humboldt University in Berlin – grapple with the anticipations of how primary students might problematise, in historical terms, the topic of the Holocaust. It is ventured that, at primary level, pupils will foremost understand political-historical events on the ‘basis of their experience’ and a focus on ‘concrete, tangible events’ (p.262). As such, distinctions between the nature of primary and secondary Holocaust education can be teased out. Primary teaching is perhaps best advised to centre itself on the chronological narrative of the Holocaust, with more theoretical considerations – such as the concepts of ‘cause’, ‘consequence’ and ‘change’ – to be introduced at secondary level. In this way, Pech and Achenbach, by extension, provide a useful contribution to wider pedagogical understandings of primary-school learning experiences that can transcend the issue of the Holocaust alone.
Holocaust Education in Primary Schools in the Twenty-First Century: Current Practices, Potentials and Ways Forwardprovides a timely reminder that, although the depth, content and audience of Holocaust education may vary, the importance of the topic remains consistent. A valuable addition to ‘The Holocaust and its Contexts’ series, this new book functions on several levels: a pedagogical handbook, an insight into student psychology, and an exploration of the life of the topic beyond the classroom alone. The variety of international perspectives offered throughout also ensure that the focus of the book is placed in a truly global context.
By the final page, the reader is left in no doubt that exposure to the Holocaust, in at least some form, is an instructive experience for young students, with significant social benefits to be reaped. Indeed, in one study, some 97% of students confirmed their ‘commitment to serve their communities’ after having been exposed to educational material relating to the Holocaust (p.37). Engagement with Holocaust education, it would seem, is a ‘primary’ concern in every sense of the word.
Citations
[1] Foster, SJ, Pettigrew, A, Pearce, AR, Hale, R, Burgess, A, Salmons, P, & Lenga, R. (2016). What Do Students Know and Understand about the Holocaust? Evidence from English Secondary Schools, Centre for Holocaust Education, Institute of Education, University College London: London, UK., p.2.
[2] Pearce, A. (2018). Remembering the Holocaust in educational settings / edited by Andy Pearce. (Remembering the modern world)., p.246.
[3]Quoted., Cowan, P., & Maitles, H. (2012). Teaching controversial issues in the classroom: Key issues and debates / edited by Paula Cowan and Henry Maitles. London: Continuum., p.111.
This book is available to purchase via Amazon: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Holocaust-Education-Primary-Schools-Twenty-First/dp/3319730983
The British and Irish Association for Holocaust Studies 