Annex 2 – Case Studies
- A high school teacher noticed that some of the students are greeting each other in the school hallways by using the Nazi salute. She decides to start teaching her class about the Holocaust. When she tells her class that in this unit they will discuss about the Holocaust, one student stands up and gives the Nazi salute. She tells her student to put his hand down, so that everyone can learn about why the Nazi salute is no longer acceptable in our societies, but he is reluctant. At the end of the lesson, as he leaves the classroom, he does the salute again and laughs. Some of his peers also find the gesture funny. The teacher talks to the school director about this incident, but the principal says that boys are just immature at that age and considers it is better to ignore it.
- After teaching his students about the history of the Holocaust, a teacher organizes a commemorative event on International Holocaust Remembrance Day. After this activity, a parent of one of the students writes to the school principal to complain that “her child is being fed nonsense and that everybody knows the Jews only talk about the Holocaust because they are after money.” The parent demands to know how much the school is being paid to “peddle conspiracy theories” and “when this indoctrination will end.” The school director calls for a meeting with all the history teachers, concerned that this incident will tarnish the reputation of the school.
- A young high school teacher wants to engage her students in a project about the Holocaust, in collaboration with a school from another country. She thinks that her project will be more successful if other teachers from the school get involved as well. When she presents her idea to a group of teachers, one of them says: “Enough about the Holocaust already! I have had enough of this subject. There are many other important subjects to discuss. These Jews, always promoting their own interest”! None of the other teachers say anything.
- A high school teacher was scrolling social media when he discovered that his students created a page that promotes a Holocaust perpetrator. While this man is considered by some people as a national hero for playing a role in the liberation of the country, he was also responsible for the massacre of thousands of Jewish women, men and children. The page already has a few thousand followers. In order to address this issue, he decides to talk to the head teacher, but when he approaches her, she says that what the students do during their free time is none of her business and, as long as they do not post during school hours she does not care what they do.
- A teacher notices that over the weekend a poster has appeared on the school fence, protesting “animal Holocaust.” The teacher scans the QR code and finds out that it leads to a campaign to promote veganism started by one of the school students. The campaign juxtaposes images of Jewish people held in concentration camps with images of animals in factory farming. The teacher brings this to the attention of the school director, but he says he is too busy with more pressing issues and that the teachers should be thankful that students are trying to be active citizens and to campaign for causes in which they believe.
- A new history teacher prepares to teach a unit about the Holocaust. She notices that the textbooks that are used in that school provide inaccurate information. The entire responsibility in the Holocaust is placed upon Nazi Germany and there is no mention of the responsibility of national and local authorities of that country. The teacher tries to talk about this with other history teachers, but they say that they must respect the assigned textbooks in the teaching processes and they do not want to stir the waters, especially regarding “a topic that is not so important in their own national history”.
- The school director informs the history teachers that the educational authority required the school to take the students to visit an exhibition organized by the local Holocaust Center. Some of the teachers know that the exhibition is problematic, as it exaggerates the role played by the local population and local authorities in the rescue of Jews, in order to create an idealized version of social cohesion. They try to raise this issue, but other teachers express the fear of losing their job or suffering other types of repercussions if they do not follow this request.