On August 10, 2014, nearly 30 educators from Colorado, Wyoming, and Nebraska attended a free full-day professional development event focusing on teaching the Holocaust in the classroom. The workshop was presented by visiting scholar  Ephraim Kaye, Director of International Seminars at The International School for Holocaust Studies at Yad Vashem, The Holocaust Martyrs’ and Heroes’ Remembrance Authority in Jerusalem, Israel. This was Mr. Kaye’s third visit to Colorado from the world’s premiere institution on the Holocaust.

 

The Mizel Museum hosted the event and the Mountain States Anti-Defamation League, Colorado Holocaust Educators and The Mizel Museum co-sponsored the event a few weeks before classes started for the majority of Colorado students.

 

All participants were welcomed by Todd Hennessy from Colorado Holocaust Educators, Ellen Premack from The Mizel Museum and Sue Parker Gerson from ADL. During the full day event, Mr. Kaye shared his expertise about how to approach the teaching of the Holocaust in the classroom, and every educator received Echoes and Reflections—A Teacher’s Resource Guide to teaching the Holocaust, developed by the Anti-Defamation League, theUSC Shoah Foundation for Visual History and Education, and Yad Vashem. These three organizations have produced one of the most comprehensive resource guides on the Holocaust available to date with the goal of teaching students the danger of unbridled hate and our individual responsibility to prevent acts of hatred and violence. The inclusion of video testimonies of Holocaust survivors, liberators, and other witnesses of the Holocaust from the library of theUSC Shoah Foundation, along with a comprehensive web site, sets this curriculum apart from other Holocaust programs.

 

Over 20,000 educators and community leaders from all 50 states have been trained to use Echoes and Reflections since its launch in July 2005. The curriculum has reached over 2.2. million students thus far.

 

For more information about the curriculum and the teacher resource guide, please visit the Echoes and Reflections web site at www.echoesandreflections.org.