October 16, 2002
NASHVILLE, Tenn. — Ask any history teacher about the challenge of making decades-old events relevant to today’s students, and you’re likely to get an earful. If the events are those that made up the Holocaust of the 1940s, the challenge is even more daunting.
But if students are made to see that what took place in Nazi Germany 60 years ago is happening today in areas throughout the world, the chances are that this oft-told story will have new relevance and meaning. That is the approach taken by a team of university scholars and high school teachers who have written the first book to systematically tie teaching high school students about the Nazi genocide of Jews to an analysis of the recent genocides in Armenia, Bosnia, Kosovo and Rwanda.
Beginning in October, the Robert Penn Warren Center for the Humanities at Vanderbilt University and the Tennessee Holocaust Commission will distribute free of charge copies of The Holocaust and Other Genocides, History, Representation, Ethics to every public and private high school in Tennessee. The Holocaust Commission and the book’s publisher, Vanderbilt Press, are also working to get word of the unique book and an interdisciplinary curriculum guide out to school systems and Holocaust organizations across the country.
“This book will have a worldwide impact on the teaching about the Holocaust and the difficult ethical questions raised by genocide,” said Mona Frederick, director of the Humanities Center.
Writing the book to serve as a high school curriculum was a yearlong interdisciplinary effort at Vanderbilt facilitated by the Humanities Center and involving educators from five universities and eight secondary schools across Tennessee.
“Not only did teachers participate in the writing, they also taught the professors a good deal about what it is to convey the meaning of the Holocaust to young people,” said the book’s editor, Helmut Smith, Vanderbilt associate professor of history.
“We’ve brought together resources from many disciplines so that teachers have the unusual opportunity to connect art, history and literature of the era to help students understand and see events surrounding the Holocaust and subsequent genocides more deeply through the eyes of those who lived it,” said Paul Fleming, Hume-Fogg High School teacher and author of the curriculum guide.
“Anyone raised in America since World War II grew up hearing ‘never again’ concerning the tragedy of the Holocaust, yet entire ethnic groups continue to be targeted and killed by governments around the world,” said Ruth Tanner, executive director of the Tennessee Holocaust Commission, which helped fund the project. “We hope this material will cause students to become more aware of how small sacrifices of freedoms made in the name of safety can dampen our capacity for compassion and lead to tragedies of enormous magnitude.”
Smith said it is important for students to know that genocide does not happen in a vacuum. “What distinguishes genocide from other mass crimes is not the number of dead, but the goal of violently extinguishing a race, their culture and way of life,” said Smith. “Those involved have sometimes been very ordinary people who knew but said nothing. We want the next generation to ask, why?”
The text brings that period of history to life through personal stories, newspaper articles, photographs, poetry and other materials. Web links and suggestions for further reading accompany each chapter. There are specific chapters on modern genocides in Armenia, Bosnia, Kosovo and Rwanda. The curriculum is intended to be adapted to whatever timeframe is available to teachers, whether it be one classroom session or a semester, and can be taught in a variety of classes, such as English, history, civics or religious studies.
In addition to distribution to schools in Tennessee, the book is being promoted through a conference for teachers “Perceptions of the Holocaust,” Oct. 29 at Vanderbilt’s Sarratt Student Center. The event is part of the Irvin and Elizabeth Limor Educational Outreach Program of the Tennessee Holocaust Commission. Information on the conference is available through the Commission at (615) 343-2563 or via email at ruth.k.tanner@vanderbilt.edu.
In addition to the Tennessee Holocaust Commission, the Zimmerman Family Foundation provided funding for the project. More information on the availability of the book can be found at: http://www.vanderbilt.edu/vupress/smith.htm.
NOTE: A photo of the book jacket is available via e-mail: david.glasgow@vanderbilt.edu