Introduction

Believing it is especially imperative that young people achieve a deeper understanding of the consequences of cultural ignorance, social intolerance, and violence motivated by bigotry, a group of teachers and school administrators (grades 6-12) from seven different public schools and one independent school in three rural counties received funding for NEH Humanities Focus Grant WCEAAH, Holocaust/Genocide Studies Reconsidered (Participants).  Funds from this grant were used to provide stipends for project personnel, consultants and participants, and to pay the costs of books, supplies, services and travel (as described in the abstract of the grant application)
            Workshops were designed to meet three broad practical and theoretical objectives: 1) Familiarize teachers with key issues in Holocaust and genocide studies and identify opportunities and methods for integrating Holocaust and genocide-related materials into the curriculum effectively and appropriately. 2) Identify sources available to enhance teacher effectiveness and to stimulate student learning and research.  (Primary and secondary materials in various media: film, literature, history, music, painting, etc.).  3) Develop effective interdisciplinary approaches to teaching the Holocaust and genocide and seek ways to explore common features among and parallels between past and current episodes of genocide.
            Priority was given to the following topics and issues: 1) the cases for and against drawing parallels between the Holocaust and other episodes of genocide; 2) the strengths and limitations of using fiction, non-fiction and artwork in the study of the Holocaust and genocide; 3) the lessons to be ascertained from Holocaust survivor testimonies and the interrelated problems of memory, representation, and testimony in the personal accounts of survivors; 4) the courage/reasoning of those who risked their lives to save the oppressed, the fate of non-Jews in the Holocaust; and the role of non-Nazi perpetrators.   See Workplan Chart for specific topics, speakers, texts, and activities.
            Survivor testimony, oral, video and text was carefully woven into the seventy-two hours of study.  Participants heard testimony and engaged in dialogue with six survivors of the Holocaust.  Two survived the death camps:  Buchenwald and Auschwitz.  Three were hidden children:  Poland, France, and the Netherlands.  One had escaped Germany just prior to the Kristallnacht but not before tragic loss of family.  Three of the five are scholars:  a professor of political science, a professor of French language and culture, and a professor of psychiatry.  Of the three other survivors one is an award-winning public school teacher, the other a successful businessman who founded a Holocaust education resource center, and the third a social worker that helped bring war orphans to America at the end of World War II.  
             Participants also read extensively from testimonial literature.  Special attention was given to Eli Weisel's Night,  and the drawings and poems of the children of Terezin compiled by Hana Volavkova in her book I Never Saw Another Butterfly.  All was in English with the exception of French testimonials read, interpreted, and discussed by the teachers of world language.  In addition to the above, participants read or viewed the testimony of survivors who were Jews, Jehovah's Witnesses, Roma and Sinti, and homosexuals.  
            Video testimony by surviving Tutsi women who were survivors of violent rape and witnesses to genocidal slaughter by the Hutu in Rwanda provided an additional context for testimonial study. 

The Importance of Evaluation
            An Educational Resources Information Database (E.R.I.C) search dating back to 1969 revealed only limited tangential empirical and anecdotal data on the efficacy of workshops on the topics of our 13 months of study.   Given the significance of empowering secondary teachers to integrate Holocaust/genocide studies into their teaching of the humanities, this report will give priority to ongoing scholarly evaluation of the outcomes of our encounters with scholars, challenging readings, and facilitated discussions.