Students remember Holocaust victims
Study projects are increasing awareness in Irish schools
Spreading awareness: Tomi Reichental (above right), a survivor from the Nazi concentration camp Bergen-Belsen, regularly visits schools to give talks about the Holocaust
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Wednesday January 28 2009
For decades the Holocaust did not feature strongly on the Irish school curriculum. Some observers have argued that Europe's greatest catastrophe of the Twentieth Century, involving the deaths of six million people, did not receive enough attention in Irish classrooms.
"When I was growing up, we hardly studied it at all in school," says Lynn Jackson, chief executive of the Holocaust Educational Trust of Ireland.
"I think there was an unspoken wish not to deal with it in schools. It was not covered properly, because it was not really the proudest moment in Irish history. Ireland only allowed in very few Jewish refugees during that period."
Over the past decade, the situation has changed dramatically. Awareness of the Holocaust has grown, and the event is dealt with in detail, not just in history, but in other subjects such as CSPE, and in more basic outline in some primary schools.
Projects related to the Holocaust and visits to concentration camps by school pupils are becoming much more common, largely as a result of the work of the Holocaust Educational Trust of Ireland.
Last Sunday, school pupils from across the country were among those who gathered in the Mansion House for the annual Holocaust Memorial Day commemorations. They heard fellow students read from a roll of victims' names.
The Nazi persecution is now featuring much more strongly in the study of history.
Dermot Lucey, editor of Stair, the journal of the History Teachers' Association of Ireland, says: "It is not true to say the Holocaust was not covered at all in previous decades.
"However, it was probably not covered in detail, because very little was covered in detail at that time.
"Now many students are choosing to cover the concentration camps as part of their special research topic at the Leaving Cert."
Mr Lucey believes television has played an important role in highlighting the suffering of the Jews during the Nazi era.
"Many students look at the History Channel and that increases interest."
Interest in the concentration camps has also been sparked by John Boyne's book, The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas, a novel which tells of the friendship between a Jewish boy in a concentration camp and the son of a Nazi. The book is studied in many Irish schools.
The novel has been criticised in some quarters as a historically inaccurate portrayal of concentration camp life. One critic from The Jewish Chronicle described Boyne's "fable" as dangerously ill-informed and said it had wrongly portrayed Auschwitz as "as unreal as Camelot or Hogwarts (the school featured in Harry Potter)".
Ms Jackson is not so critical.
"You have to allow for the fact that it is an imaginative work of fiction. It is not a factual work, but it does raise awareness of the Holocaust."
The Holocaust Educational Trust of Ireland was set up as a charity in 2005. It is chaired by Labour Party politician Ruairi Quinn.
"The main purpose of the organisation is to educate and inform Irish people about the Holocaust in order to raise awareness about anti-semitism and all forms of racism and intolerance in Ireland," says Ms Jackson.
The trust designs programmes for children from the age of 11 upwards.
One of the most striking successes of the trust has been the Crocus project, involving 17,000 Irish primary school children.
Pupils at over 300 schools plant yellow crocus bulbs in memory of 1.5 million children from Jewish and other backgrounds who died in the Holocaust.
The yellow flowers are a reminder of the yellow star, which Jews had to wear during the Nazi era.
"Engaging them in the activity of planting the bulbs and watching them grow prompts discussion on the dangers of discrimination and the importance of tolerance and respect. When people admire the flowers, the children can explain what they represent," says Ms Jackson.
Pioneered in Ireland, the Crocus Project is now imitated in other countries, including Britain, Poland, Spain, Croatia, and Israel.
The educational trust also organises study programmes for teachers including visits to Krakow and Auschwitz, and presentations by Holocaust scholars.
More information: www.holocausteducationaltrustireland.org
