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Abstract
We analyse the way in which the Holocaust is taught in The Netherlands, with an emphasis on critically examining the content of secondary school textbooks used to teach Dutch students about the history of the Holocaust. We also interview Dutch educators, government officials and academics about the state of Dutch Holocaust education. Our findings indicate that Dutch students are underexposed to the Holocaust and lack basic knowledge and conceptual understanding of it. Fundamental concerns regarding the civic obligations of citizens in a democracy and basic principles of human rights that are raised by the history of the Holocaust in The Netherlands are often ignored or examined superficially, sometimes because of ambivalence about the extent of Dutch involvement in the genocide of Dutch Jewry. Little attention is paid to the complex moral choices that Dutch citizens faced during the Second World War and the life-or-death implications such decisions had for Dutch Jews. Finally, Jewish history and culture and the history of European anti-Semitism are rarely addressed in textbooks and history lessons about the Holocaust, undermining efforts to sensitise students to the implications of the Holocaust for The Netherlands and for Europe as a whole. In our conclusion, we offer some models of Holocaust education that could significantly improve the quality and content of Dutch Holocaust education.
Acknowledgements
The authors wish to thank Dr Judith Goldstein, Executive Director of the Humanity in Action Foundation, and Anna Timmerman, Director of Humanity in Action in The Netherlands, for their ongoing support and interest in our research. We are grateful for the continuous support of the Humanity in Action Foundation, which has enabled us to conduct our research with the necessary resources and enabled us to attend conferences and related programs on Holocaust education. We would also like to thank the Anne Frank Foundation for supporting part of this research, both institutionally and financially, and Karin Polak for her stimulating encouragement and critique. We wish to thank Elise Storck for so generously sharing her reflections with us on holocaust education in the Netherlands, and her experiences as a teacher. Ido Abraham and Frieda Menco were particularly generous with their time and energy, and we wish to thank them for their contribution to our research, and to acknowledge their deep involvement in promoting Holocaust education in The Netherlands and beyond. To all those who we interviewed we are grateful for their comments and candour. Finally, nothing would have been possible without the great hospitality and generosity of Frans Verhagen, Karen Ko, Paul and Mark. We thank them for hosting us and for creating an ideal home base in Amsterdam from which to conduct our research.
Notes
Notes
1. The 4th and 5th May Committee is an appointed body designated by the national government to organise the national days of remembrance on the 4th and 5th of May. On 5 May, 1945, Nazi-Germany officially surrendered to the Netherlands. The committee was set up to foster and stimulate the active involvement of Dutch citizenry in these commemorations and related public programs.
2. The Holocaust and Genocide Centre was established in 2003; it has as part of its task providing university education on the Holocaust and other genocides, and it persues curriculum development in cooperation with the Anne Frank Foundation. Together they also provide supplementary courses for history teachers in secondary education and additional classes on Holocaust education in teacher training institutes. Yet, these programs are neither obligatory nor do they address the full teacher corps. So far they have also been organised on an irregular basis. The Centre is also working on new educational materials on more recent genocides, but this is at a preliminary phase.