Creating Critical Thinkers Through Holocaust Education

A Centropa professional development opportunity in partnership with the Sarah and Chaim Neuberger Holocaust Education Centre

How do we teach students to be curious about what they read,

ask relevant questions, and think critically?

Answer: Engage them in the stories of people who survived all that history threw at them—stories they can relate to—and teach them how to analyze the photographs and interviews of the people who lived those stories. Join us for an hour of learning with primary sources that you can bring back directly to your students.

What is Centropa? Centropa, a Jewish historical institute based in Vienna, interviewed 1,200 elderly Jews living in 15 European countries. We did not use video but rather asked our respondents to tell us their entirelife stories spanning the 20th c. as they showed us their old family photographs.

Centropa offers teachers a database of thousands of annotated photos, hundreds of interviews, and scores of award-winning, short multimedia films (none longer than 30 minutes)—ideal for creating virtual or in-class projects that teach digital literacy, promote critical thinking, increase global awareness—all free of charge. Each summer we bring the most innovative teachers to the great cities of Central Europe to travel with 80 teachers from 15 countries—in 2022 we will be in Berlin.

Teachers use Centropa resources to teach history, Holocaust, social studies, English Language Arts, art, foreign language, filmmaking, photography, technology, and civics.

REGISTER HERE

What makes Centropa different? Our approach to 20th century history and Holocaust education:

· students relate to our stories because they get to know survivors from their childhood through old age, which means they relate to their stories of growing up, overcoming hardship, and resilience;

· our pedagogy: no boxed curriculum - you decide how our resources will work for you;

· our emphasis on Jewish life: every resource enables you to put survivors’ Holocaust experiences in the context of their lives, whether well-to-do or poor, urban or rural, religious or secular;

· our international teachers network: since 2007 we have created a teachers’ network that spans six continents, bringing together hundreds of teachers who connect their students through learning.

Questions? Contact 

Lauren Granite, Centropa, or

Michelle Fishman, Neuberger Holocaust Education Centre