Annex – Case studies

1. Your government is reluctant to admit the responsibility of certain historical figures in relation to the Holocaust despite documented evidence. Instead, the government presents them as national heroes. Their role in the Holocaust is downplayed or ignored. This approach manifests in various ways, including historical narratives that omit their culpability, streets bearing their names, and schools and institutions celebrating their legacy. Moreover, the public space is marked by statues erected in their honor, further perpetuating a narrative that contradicts established historical facts.

2. Your government intends to pass a law that limits the activity of academic researchers who focus on the Holocaust, by not allowing them to speak or write about the responsibility of certain people or of the local or national administration in the Holocaust. The proposed law aims to curtail the ability of these researchers to discuss specific individuals, as well as the potential roles of local or national administrations in the Holocaust. Such limitations could have far-reaching consequences on scholarly inquiry and the pursuit of historical truth. This proposed legislation could influence academic discourse by shaping the scope and breadth of research topics and findings.

3. One of the political parties from your Parliament is promoting a discourse in which Jewish people or certain prominent Jews are falsely accused of being collaborators during the Holocaust. They promote this narrative on social media, television broadcasts and at rallies in different parts of the country. The party’s supporters engage in online forums, comment sections, and discussions to amplify the false accusations. They often employ manipulation techniques such as cherry-picking historical sources or employing circular logic to validate their claims. The party attempts to exert influence over educational institutions by pressuring for curriculum changes that include this distorted narrative.

4. A Neo-Nazi group organizes marches in your town every year on November 9 (anniversary of anti-Jewish pogrom known as Kristallnacht) and is actively trying to recruit people. Members of the Neo-Nazi group actively approach vulnerable individuals, often targeting disaffected youth or those experiencing economic hardships. They exploit these individuals’ grievances and offer a sense of belonging, promising a distorted sense of identity and purpose within the group. The group distributes violent extremist literature, flyers, and online content that propagates antisemitism. These materials contain disinformation and distorted historical narratives that seek to justify their beliefs and recruit sympathizers.

5. Within the framework of a national school curriculum, the treatment of the Holocaust has raised concerns among some educators, historians and Jewish organizations. The curriculum places a predominant emphasis on narratives of rescue and the recognition of Righteous among the Nations,¹ while omitting some of the most important aspects of the systematic murder of Jews, the role of antisemitism and the responsibility of various perpetrators. The citizens and organizations who raised these concerns argue that this approach diminishes the understanding of the genocidal scale of the Holocaust, leading to an incomplete and distorted perception of history among students.

^{1 People who have been recognized and honored by Yad Vashem, Israel’s Holocaust memorial, as non-Jewish individuals who risked their lives to aid Jews during the Holocaust.}