Marginalisation through commemoration: Trends and practices in Holocaust education in the United Kingdom

Abstract

This provocation reflects on trends in Holocaust education in the UK. It argues that an emphasis on cultivating memory means much teaching and learning about the Holocaust is commemorative rather than educational. In this pursuit it forwards five theses about the current condition of much teaching and learning about the Holocaust.

Keywords:

• Holocaust
• Holocaust memory
• Holocaust education
• commemoration

Notes

1 E. Runia, ‘Burying the Dead, Creating the Past,’ History and Theory, 46.3 (2007), 314–15.

2 Runia, 314–15.

3 D. Cesarani, Final Solution: The Fate of the Jews, 1933–1949 (London: Palgrave Macmillan. 2015), xxv.

4 A. Pettigrew et al., Teaching the Holocaust in English Secondary Schools: An Empirical Study of National Trends, Perspectives and Practice (London: Institute of Education, 2009); S. Foster et al., What Do Students Know and Understand about the Holocaust? Evidence from English Secondary Schools (London: UCL, 2016).

5 A. Pearce, ‘An Emerging “Holocaust Memorial Problem”? The Condition of Holocaust Culture in Britain,’ The Journal of Holocaust Research, 33.2 (2019), 117–37. See also C. Pennell, ‘Taught to Remember? British Youth and First World War Battlefield Centenary Tours,’ Cultural Trends, 27.2 (2018), 83–98.

6 Runia, 316, 320.

7 Foster et al., 37–69.

8 D. Stone, ‘The Domestication of Violence: Forging a Collective Memory of the Holocaust in Britain, 1945–6,’ Patterns of Prejudice, 33.2 (1999), 13–29.

9 F.R. Ankersmit, Historical Representation (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2001), 165.

10 Pettigrew, 76.

11 M. Oakeshott, On History and Other Essays (Indianapolis, IN: Liberty Fund Inc., 1999), 36, 38, 43.

12 A. Pearce, ‘Introduction: Education, Remembrance and the Holocaust: Towards Pedagogic Memory-Work,’ in Remembering the Holocaust in Educational Settings, ed. Andy Pearce (New York: Routledge, 2018), 11–13.

13 Runia, 317.

14 N. Kinloch, ‘Review: Learning about the Holocaust: Moral or Historical Question?,’ Teaching History, 93 (1998), 44–6.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Andy Pearce

Andy Pearce is an Associate Professor in Holocaust and History Education. Based in the UCL Centre for Holocaust Education, he is engaged in the delivery of research-informed Continuing Professional Development for teachers and landmark educational research. He is also a historian of Britain and the Holocaust.