10.06.2020
These internships contribute to the qualifications of teachers and researchers: this was the conclusion of the participants of the online conference, which took place on June 10.
Everyone had an opportunity to present their research on the Holocaust, share the impressions of foreign internships and talk about using the knowledge gained in their professional activities.
I suggest that we exchange not so much experiences, but feelings and emotional states that are associated with our academic trips
Dr. Alla Gerber, Co-Chair of the Holocaust Center, President of the Holocaust Foundation
Dr. Alla Gerber, Co-Chair of the Holocaust Center, president of the Holocaust Foundation, addressed the conference with a welcoming speech. “I suggest that we exchange not so much experiences, but feelings and emotional states that are associated with our academic trips,” she emphasized. - One must visit not only the former concentration camps in Germany and Poland, or the collective image of all this, the Yad Vashem Museum in Israel. In Russia there are many terrible places, shooting pits, ghettos, areas of mass murder, not to mention Ukraine and Belarus. They should also be studied.
We know our own tragic story but poorly. Unfortunately, in the country there is actually not a single museum dedicated to our own camps - the Gulag and others. On the other hand, I was once in Kazakhstan, in Karlag, it was muddy autumn, a huge slushy area, and I don’t know if I would have been more impressed if there had been an organized museum. However, a museum such as Yad Vashem, which gathered all the tragedy in one place, presents this courageously, cleverly, interestingly, modernly, and this is very important.
We see what is happening in America. This is the result of aggression accumulated over a long time, when all the people around are perceived as strangers, enemies, people of another nation, another religion, different skin color. The cumulative effect of hatred always exists, and we must keep this in mind. Therefore, it is necessary to speak about the Holocaust openly and honestly, especially with the younger generation. Today, with an abundance of propaganda and deception around, students need a teacher whom they will believe.”
The conference was attended by employees of the Holocaust Center, the International School for the Study of the Holocaust Yad Vashem, the House of the Wannsee Conference, the International Center for the Prosecution of the Nazis - Bad Arolsen Archive, regional representatives of the Holocaust Center, educators, historians, archivists who had internships in Israel and Germany, as well as those who, due to quarantine measures, had to postpone trips until a later date.
The presentations focused upon features of foreign internship Holocaust-related programs, their importance for advanced training of teachers and researchers, criteria for selecting participants, and the plans of the Holocaust Center to develop new foreign internship programs.
In April-May, we implemented the project “Authors of Victory”: the media of four states published correspondence from the family archives of war veterans. A new electronic version of the traveling exhibition of documents is being prepared, to be displayed in the regions. Together with the University of Potsdam, we are starting a joint project “Germany and the Germans in the letters and diaries of Soviet soldiers” and “Soviet soldiers in the diaries and letters of the Germans”.
Dr. Ilya Altman, Director of the Center for the History of the Holocaust and Genocides of RSUH
Dr. Ilya Altman, Director of the Center for the History of the Holocaust and Genocides of RSUH, spoke about his activities. “In April-May, we implemented the project “Authors of Victory”: the media of four states published correspondence from the family archives of war veterans. A new electronic version of the traveling exhibition of documents is being prepared, to be displayed in the regions. Together with the University of Potsdam, we are starting a joint project “Germany and the Germans in the letters and diaries of Soviet soldiers” and “Soviet soldiers in the diaries and letters of the Germans”. Next year marks another date, the 80th anniversary of the Holocaust in Russia. We plan to publish letters related to the history of the Holocaust and one can’t do it without a search work.
Last year we held seminars with teachers, this year seminars with journalists are planned, we will start from the places of execution, and finish in Beslan. This perception of the Holocaust through the prism of terrorism is extremely important.
Finally, “Politics of Memory: Holocaust and Genocides”, a Master's program, opens at RSUH at the Faculty of International Relations, the first of this kind in the post-Soviet space
On June 22 at 4PM an online conference will be held under the working title “Generalplan Ost and the Holocaust”, where we will talk about the various plans of the Nazis, about how they were thought out and why they could not be implemented.”
Organizers: Holocaust Center together with the Center for the History of the Holocaust and Genocides of RSUH.