Children’s and YA Holocaust literature as social education: a multidimensional framework for historical understanding, empathy, and democratic citizenship

Holocaust education is a core task of social education, linking historical understanding with empathy, moral judgment, and democratic citizenship. This theoretical article examines children's and YA Holocaust literature as a medium of social education. Drawing on social pedagogy, critical pedagogy, intercultural and citizenship education, difficult knowledge, and moral emotions, it develops a multidimensional framework with cognitive-historical, emotional–empathic, ethical–normative, critical–political, and resilience-related dimensions. Illustrative readings of Rose Blanche, Number the Stars, and Maus show how such texts require historically specific, trauma-aware, and critically dialogic pedagogical framing.