July 11, 2024
by Jane Caffrey
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Vision Schools Scotland, in partnership with the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) held its first international conference on teaching and learning about the Holocaust at the SEC, Glasgow on Sunday 23 June 2024. Lord Eric Pickles, United Kingdom Special Envoy for post-Holocaust issues and IHRA Chair, was joined by fellow members of the UK IHRA delegation that includes Dr Paula Cowan, University of the West of Scotland and Director, Vision Schools Scotland, Alex Maws, Association of Jewish Refugees, Dr Ruth-Anne Lenga, Centre for Holocaust Education, University College London and Martin Winstone, the Holocaust Educational Trust.
Keynote speakers were Dr Rob Williams, Finci- Viterbi Executive Director of the USC Shoah Foundation and adviser to the IHRA who spoke on distortion of the Holocaust, and Prof Mehnaz Afridi, Director of the Holocaust, Genocide and Interfaith Education Centre at Manhattan College who spoke on Teaching the Holocaust to Muslin students.
There were also shorter presentations from delegates from the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) from Australia, Serbia and the UK on specific aspects of teaching the Holocaust, and from teachers from Vision Schools who shared their ideas and good practice.
Chitra Ramaswamy an author and journalist spoke about her latest book, Homelands: The History of a Friendship, published by Canongate in April 2022, exploring the life of and her friendship with Henry Wuga MBE (1924- 2024), then a 98-year-old German Jewish refugee. This book won the Saltire Prize Non- Fiction Book of the Year, 2022.
Dr Cowan said, “We were thrilled to host the first ever international conference on teaching and learning about the Holocaust in Scotland. Several teachers in the Vision Schools Scotland network have indicated that they have experienced new challenges this year, and we are delighted to be able to provide teachers a unique CPD opportunity which we hope will support teachers address these challenges. The conference covered a breadth of topics from best practice in teaching about the Holocaust-to-Holocaust distortion and teaching the Roma genocide.
My thanks to the School of Education and Social Sciences at the University of the West of Scotland, for supporting this conference, to IHRA for its wonderful assistance, and to each of the amazing speakers, my colleagues at Vision Schools Scotland welcomed to Glasgow.”
Established in 2017, Vision Schools Scotland is a partnership between and the Holocaust Educational Trust. Vision Schools Scotland is funded by UWS and the Scottish Government, with additional support from the Department of Levelling-Up, Housing and Communities.
‘Gathering the Voices’, an exhibition on people who sought sanctuary in Scotland to escape the Holocaust, was also available for conference participants to view.
The IHRA reported on the conference here Embedding Holocaust education throughout schools in Scotland – IHRA (holocaustremembrance.com)
