Handouts for Group Work

Areas for addressing Holocaust distortion¹

1. Identifying and monitoring Holocaust distortion

Monitors of hate speech or hate crimes regularly encounter distortion, but current statistical indicators, including those focused on antisemitism, insufficiently address it. Specific tools are needed for identifying and tracking this phenomenon, such as:

• Developing guidelines for groups that monitor hate speech and hate crime so they can deal with distortion in an effective way that also respects universal standards for human rights, including freedom of expression.
• Encouraging the use of transparent methodologies for tracking and monitoring that facilitate sharing of information to enhance accountability, while respecting the right to privacy.
• Recognizing that the problem requires global solutions and engaging in cooperative multi-stakeholder dialogue in order to develop common strategies.

Questions:

• What actions could you take to support this?
• What challenges do you expect to be facing in this process?
• What measures could be taken in order to overcome these obstacles?
• Who could help you in this process? What partnerships and synergies could be developed to ensure effectiveness and sustainability?

2. Supporting education to counter Holocaust distortion

Recent surveys indicate significant declines in awareness of the Holocaust and history in general, leading to a rise in distortion of these crimes, a phenomenon closely tied to antisemitism. In order to address this, the following aspects need to be covered:

• Consistent funding for training delivered by organizations with expertise on how to recognize and respond to distortion.
• Collaboration between local and international experts to design training programs for target audiences (including opinion leaders, media representatives, internet companies, etc.) and/or use existing materials from recognized organizations.
• Encouraging participation in training of people whose work would benefit from training programs focused on recognizing and responding to Holocaust distortion.
• Facilitate visits to local sites related to the Holocaust, to concentration and extermination camps, to Holocaust museums and memorials, as well as marking International Holocaust Remembrance Day and national days of commemoration with meaningful educational activities.
• Investing in digital citizenship education to equip learners to interpret and evaluate (dis)information in the digital age and advance media and information literacy.
• Systematically reviewing school textbooks and learning materials to ensure historical accuracy. Teachers should:
  • be trained in pedagogies that build resilience against Holocaust denial and distortion;
  • receive guidance and resources on how to respond to critical incidents of Holocaust denial and distortion in the classroom, on how to respond to resistance to learning about the Holocaust, and how to effectively navigate classroom discussions about hate speech and conspiracy theories.
• Educators who teach about the Holocaust should receive proper training to ensure they do not promote antisemitism due to faulty pedagogy. Moreover, existing programs that educate people about the Holocaust should promote critical thinking and offer guidance to identify, reject and understand the harm that can be caused by illegitimate equations between the Holocaust and other historical or contemporary events. Educators should be trained on how to meaningfully compare the Holocaust to other atrocity crimes whilst maintaining historical accuracy and contextualizing both histories.

Questions:

• What actions could you take to support this?
• What challenges do you expect to be facing in this process?
• What measures could be taken in order to overcome these obstacles?
• Who could help you in this process? What partnerships and synergies could be developed to ensure effectiveness and sustainability?

3. Strengthening institutions that protect the memory of the Holocaust and ensure collaboration with the educational system

The work of institutions that teach and commemorate the Holocaust and its aftermath is important for preventing and combating distortion. In this sense, access to documents, photographs, artifacts, to sites of memory and recorded testimonies of survivors and other witnesses is crucial. However, some of these institutions face significant challenges such as: being targeted by extremists and populist movements (or even by governments) that challenge historical facts; functioning in societies and cultures that tolerate distortion of history, juggle competing historical memories (e.g. Soviet vs. Nazi crimes) or celebrate war criminals as resistors; being subjected to politization of history; and having limited or no public financial support. Measures that can be taken to protect such organizations are:

• Providing sustainable financial support to ensure continuity of projects and activities, while guarding independence from political pressure;
• Ensuring that school curricula include visits to museums and sites of memory for students of an appropriate age, with preparation beforehand and debriefing afterward;
• Ensuring cooperation between institutions addressing the Holocaust, antisemitism and racism and the educational authority;
• Providing professional development opportunities for staff of Holocaust museums, archives and educational organizations, civil society organizations, journalists and other actors on how to effectively respond to Holocaust distortion; and to ensure that exhibitions and guided tours do not unintentionally mischaracterize aspects of this history;
• Strengthening international cooperation with relevant institutions and networks that address the Holocaust, antisemitism, and hate speech so that they can support efforts to counter distortion through multi-stakeholder cooperation;
• Ensuring that everyone has access to accurate and informed resources on the history of the Holocaust;
• Ensuring that archives related to the Holocaust are safeguarded, digitized and have open access;
• Ensuring free and open research on all aspects related to the Holocaust.

Questions:

• What actions could you take to support this?
• What challenges do you expect to be facing in this process?
• What measures could be taken in order to overcome these obstacles?
• Who could help you in this process? What partnerships and synergies could be developed to ensure effectiveness and sustainability?

4. Recognizing and responding to Holocaust distortion online

Holocaust distortion is a significant problem on social media. Several civil society initiatives have focused on holding social media companies responsible for the content that appears on their platforms, but more efforts should be taken at institutional levels to:

• Enhance cooperation between social media companies and institutions/experts on Holocaust distortion for analyzing the existing data, in order to understand the prevalence, spread and impact on Holocaust distortion on various platforms.
• Offer sustainable support for the development of social media accounts of Holocaust-focused institutions and accessible educational resources that will be resistant to abuse by distorters in the fast-moving world of social media.
• Ensure the addressing of Holocaust distortion and denial online is systematically and holistically integrated into national action plans addressing antisemitism, hate speech and/or disinformation, including through educational interventions in line with education recommendations.
• Raise awareness about Holocaust distortion online, about the potential of AI to promote Holocaust distortion and promote accurate information about the Holocaust.
• Call for greater transparency of internet companies, their algorithms and their moderation policies as a means to enhance their accountability.
• Facilitate cooperation between organizations that monitor online distortion, disinformation and hate speech and institutions that face challenges from Holocaust distorters, and the sharing of data and good practices in order to improve understanding of the depth and source of the problem.
• Allocate funds and resources to advance independent research on online trends on online platforms, to develop robust response mechanisms and better mitigate the harmful impact of Holocaust denial and distortion, as well as any other form of hateful content.
• Provide training, support and materials to Holocaust educators to help them understand how Holocaust denial and distortion are communicated online and the types of communities in which they currently circulate.
• Establish advisory councils on Holocaust distortion to support greater dialogue and understanding on the threats it poses to democratic values, and to advise governments on how better to address persisting problems of hate speech and misinformation on online platforms. These bodies should monitor the manifestations of Holocaust distortion online, and, when necessary, take action on or against harmful content that denies or distorts the Holocaust.

Questions:

• What actions could you take to support this?
• What challenges do you expect to be facing in this process?
• What measures could be taken in order to overcome these obstacles?

Who could help you in this process? What partnerships and synergies could be developed to ensure effectiveness and sustainability?

If your group is working on a newly identified area of action, please discuss the concrete measures you could take in this area to prevent and combat Holocaust distortion and, for each action, answer the following questions:

• What actions could you take to support this?
• What obstacles do you expect to be facing in this process?
• What measures could be taken in order to overcome these obstacles?
• Who could help you in this process? What partnerships and synergies could be developed to ensure effectiveness and sustainability?

^{1 The recommendations included in these handouts are based on IHRA Report: Recognizing and Countering Holocaust Distortion – Recommendations for Policy and Decision Makers and on the UNESCO Report: History Under Attack – Holocaust Denial and Distortion on Social Media}