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The Multiple Perspectives on the Holocaust project will give American teachers a greater understanding of the Holocaust, in order to aid in their teaching of this important piece of history.
Participants will visit a number of sites related to the Holocaust to further their knowledge of the event. These sites include the US Holocaust Museum, Ravensbrueck, Auschwitz and the Jewish History Museum in Berlin.
Learning at these sites will inspire participants to share their experiences with students, other teachers and the public.
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Czech writer Ivan Klima learned that he was a Jew as a child in Prague at the time of the Nazi conquest. He was in Terezin and survived Auschwitz but all of his family and most of the people he knew died there. In spite of his own experiences, Klima knew that vengeance would be a mistake
“which, instead of bringing us closer to the state of freedom and justice we wish to achieve, take us in the opposite direction. In themselves, extreme experiences do not open the way to wisdom. We can only achieve that if we are able to judge our experience from a distance.”
Ivan Klima THE SPIRIT OF PRAGUE, translated by Paul Wilson, p. 84.