Holocaust Education for the New Millennium: Assessing our Progress

This article reviews some of the highlights of Holocaust education, suggesting that there is a need now for assessment of existing programmes. Since 1945, Western scholars and policy makers have become increasingly sensitive to the need for educating society about the dangers of exclusionary institutional structures and genocidal social policies. State systems of education have prepared curricula and pedagogies, which, in addition to teaching historical facts specific to the Holocaust, focus moral awareness and enhance the capacity for social criticism. Scholars both in the United States and Britain nevertheless have a growing concern that we do not know the kind or degree of effect our work has had on students. Objectives, goals and curricular strategies discussed in the literature are reviewed and suggestions tendered for an assessment of Holocaust education, which will give us some direction for future initiatives.