Puneet Riar
LINKING HUMAN RIGHTS EDUCATION AND HOLOCAUST EDUCTION
When one thinks about learning about the Holocaust, it may seem most logical to
start learning about it in the narrative sense; that is, in chronological order or in the
series of events that commenced with Adolf Hitler taking power in Germany and ending
with the liberation of the various camps. However, it may be of interest to educators and
students to look the Holocaust through a human rights perspective. More importantly,
given their relationship, looking at the Holocaust through this lens may be useful in
learning more about human rights themselves. Following this, it can be said that
Holocaust education can helping in teaching human rights education.
By exploring how Holocaust education can be used as a tool in learning about
human rights, a unique way of teaching both subjects emerges. This paper will focus on
how the former can be used to learn about the latter. This paper will start out by first
giving a brief definition of key concepts that will be discussed. Following this will be a
brief background of how the Holocaust is currently being taught, and how the Holocaust
is different from other genocides in history. Next will come the bulk of the paper,
wherein the exploration of how learning about the Holocaust can help us learn about
human rights. Challenges posed by this will occupy the next section of the paper.
Finally, the paper will conclude by restating the main points argued.
According to Amnesty International, the definition of human rights education is “a
deliberate, participatory practice aimed at empowering individuals, groups and
communities through fostering knowledge, skills and attitudes consistent with
internationally recognized human rights principles.”1 For the sake of this paper, this also
encompasses learning about international human rights conventions, laws and human
rights violations, particularly genocides.
The term “Holocaust” in the past was used to describe large slaughters or
massacres,2 but with respect to this paper, Holocaust refers to the more contemporarily
1
“Human Rights Education,” Amnesty International, accessed June 25, 2014, http://www.amnesty.org/en/humanrights-education.
2
Donald L. Niewyk and Francis R. Nicosia, The Columbia Guide to the Holocaust (New York City: Columbia
University Press, 2000), 45.
2
associated concept of the total annihilation of Jews (and other “undesirable” groups) by
Nazi Germany. Therefore, Holocaust education is “education that takes the
discrimination, persecution, and extermination of the Jews and other groups by the
Nazis as its focus, both for the purpose of deeper understanding and contextualization
of the Holocaust and out of a desire to acknowledge and commemorate the suffering of
numerous non-Jewish victims of the Nazi era.”3
Before delving into the link between human rights education and Holocaust
education, a discussion of some of the ways the Holocaust is presently being taught
needs to be addressed. Most popularly, history teachers (at the elementary school
level) often teach the Holocaust, as stated before, as a linear4 historical narrative of
connected events usually within the context of the Second World War — however the
focus remains largely on the Second World War. At the high school and post-secondary
level, it may be situated in the “context of comparing genocides”.5 Educators situated
especially in Europe6, take their students to the Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial and
Museum or other authentic Holocaust sites so that students receive supplementary
education; students are able to witness, learn facts, and tour the authentic site where
atrocities were committed. More, in West Switzerland, a study7 showed that history
teachers were teaching about the Holocaust within the context of citizenship 8 and how
the Jews were affected by that (or rather the lack thereof). Although these teaching
3
European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights, Discover the past for the future
Monique Eckmann, “Exploring the relevance of Holocaust education for human rights education”, Prospects 40
(2010): accessed June 25, 2014, doi: 10. 1007/s11125-010-9140-z.
5
Eckmann, “Exploring the relevance,”
6
“Auschwitz Memorial visited by 1.33 million people in 2013,” Auschwitz-Birkeanu Memorial and Museum,
accessed June 25, 2014,
http://en.auschwitz.org/m/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1153&Itemid=7.
7
Eckmann, “Exploring the relevance,”
8
Eckmann, “Exploring the relevance,”
4
3
methods each have their own merit, it is clear that they do not include human rights.
The closest we get to with learning about inalienable human rights and the Holocaust is
with respect to the latter example on citizenship.
But why the Holocaust? Is it special? Post war, many saw the Holocaust as a
sad, albeit negligible event. Even during the Nuremberg Trials, it was “just one issue
among others”.9 But in the past half century, renewed interest towards the Holocaust
has grown for different reasons. For Jews, it is “to cope with their trauma”10, for
Germans to “rehabilitate their relation to the past”11 and for others it is a “symbol of the
limit-case of the human condition”.12
This renewed interest has spurred many scholars to label the Holocaust as
unique because people are still studying it intensely 70 years after it has occurred.
Despite this, historians and Holocaust educators have been going back and forth
debating if the Holocaust is in fact a unique event. This uniqueness can be accounted
for a number of reasons, the first being that the Holocaust was a deliberate “fusion of
collective humiliation and mass destruction”.13 Stalin, in his mass killings, “wanted to
destroy the class enemy”14, in that he wanted to abolish class. Mao’s “cultural revolution
sought its humiliation”15 but the Nazis were able to apply both in the case of the
Holocaust.
9
Avishai Margalit and Gabriel Motzkin, “The Uniqueness of the Holocaust”, Philosophy & Public Affairs 25 (1996):
accessed June 25, 2014, doi: 10.1111/j.1088-4963.1996.tb00076.x.
10
Margalit and Motzkin, “Uniqueness,”
11
Margalit and Motzkin, “Uniqueness,”
12
Margalit and Motzkin, “Uniqueness,”
13
Margalit and Motzkin, “Uniqueness,”
14
Margalit and Motzkin, “Uniqueness,”
15
Margalit and Motzkin, “Uniqueness,”
4
Humiliation was sought through many ways including: duping Jews on what was
going to happen to them right up until they died16, believing a racial theory that certain
races were inherently inferior17 (and going to the point of even trying to medically correct
the genetic makeup/sterilization of these races), forcing them to have their heads
shaved, wearing the religious connotations of the Star of David, and making them into
merely statistics18 after tattooing numbers on them. Destruction of a race in the form of
mass death was on an industrial19 scale, almost to the point of being factory-like in the
concentration camps. Even more unique and horrifying was the fact that the Nazis ran
the camps like they were an economy. Everything was used even after for victims had
died, like ashes used as fertilizer or bones and teeth used for jewellery. These aspects
make the Holocaust an unprecedented event with unique characteristics that are
different from other mass genocides that have happened before and after the
Holocaust; thus it stands alone when compared with other genocides.
Despite the fact that the Holocaust is seen as a standalone event 20 in the realm
of mass human rights violations, it can nevertheless be used to help learn about human
rights. The Third Reich violated every human right that a human being is entitled to, one
example being barring Jews from public places like parks. As such, the Holocaust can
be used as a tool in human rights education in that awareness can be raised about what
exactly human rights are and how they were violated. In a study21 done by the
16
Margalit and Motzkin, “Uniqueness,”
Margalit and Motzkin, “Uniqueness,”
18
Margalit and Motzkin, “Uniqueness,”
19
Margalit and Motzkin, “Uniqueness,”
20
David H. Lindquist, “Informed COMMENTARY: Five Perspectives for Teaching the Holocaust,” American
Secondary Education 36 (2008): accessed June 27, 2014, http://www/jstor.org/stable/41406118.
21
European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights, Discover the past for the future: The role of historical sites and
museums in Holocaust education and human rights education in the EU (Luxembourg: Publications Office of the
European Union, 2011).
17
5
European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights, their findings suggest that students,
when visiting memorial sites of the Holocaust, could not juxtapose the Holocaust and
human rights. Human rights “were virtually not talked about at school”22 and this gap in
knowledge reinforces the need for Holocaust and human rights education and
cooperation.
Using the Holocaust as a case study in human rights education will lead to
awareness about rights the Nazis violated like the right “to own property, the right to
freedom of movement, of the right to be protected by or from one’s own state, and even
the right to life”.23 Other rights mentioned in the United Nations Universal Declaration of
Human Rights, and others in major human and political rights documents will also be
addressed. Examining human rights within the Holocaust will also raise awareness of
the fact that other nations also violated the rights of Holocaust victims. These rights
violations were committed by “bystander countries”24 and included things such as
“refusing to grant asylum or protection, failing to protect human dignity, denying access
to citizenship, and failing to protect individuals from persecution by other states”.25 It will
be illustrated to learners that the protection of rights is not only up to the state that the
right violations is happening in, but also it falls upon other states to uphold those basic
rights when they are being violated. In addition by learning about the extreme violations
of the rights of helpless people, hopefully a greater appreciation for the existence of
them and realization of the need to protect them will appear apparent.
22
Publications Office of the European Union, Discover the past for the future.
Eckmann, “Exploring the relevance,”
24
Eckmann, “Exploring the relevance,”
25
Eckmann, “Exploring the relevance,”
23
6
Though the origins of human rights most likely emanate from the French
Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen (1789) and the United States
Declaration of Independence (1776), the world did not come to embrace universal
human rights until 194826 when the United Nations created The Universal Declaration of
Human Rights. This document was created in light of the atrocities, in large part
referring to the Holocaust, committed by the Nazis during World War Two. It was
deemed the previous United Nations Charter was not sufficient enough to uphold the
rights it was intended to. So in this way, learning about the Holocaust can help in
learning about human rights because human rights documents, especially the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) and the Genocide convention27, were created out
of the Holocaust. The Holocaust fundamentally changed how we look at human rights
and it can be used as a reference point when studying these documents.
When analyzing human rights documents, specifically the ones mentioned
previously, awareness is raised about the specific crimes that happened during the
Holocaust. This is all taught within the frame of mind of knowing the principles of the
UDHR and the Genocide convention. The outcome will be a better ability to evaluate
how these principles came to be included in these documents by matching the violation
with the right that’s included in the declaration or convention. By studying the extreme
rights violations in the Holocaust, it will become clear as to where the right originated
from and why it was included in the declaration or convention.
26
“The Universal Declaration of Human Rights,” United Nations, accessed June 27, 2014,
http://www.un.org/en/documents/udhr/index.shtml#a1.
27
Eckmann, “Exploring the relevance,”
7
Moreover, when studying various human rights documents, the “three
generations of rights”28 (essentially the evolutionary history of human rights in three
stages) are addressed. By focusing in on the historical aspect of the Holocaust within
the framework of the “three generations of rights”, awareness is raised about what the
three generations are and what their differences from each other are. In addition how
the Holocaust can fit into each of those categories can be realized.
Finally, large themes relevant to human rights emerge when looking at human
rights documents and at the same time learning about the Holocaust. Injustices that
happened to victims in the Holocaust are addressed, then are situated in the
appropriate country and historical time period29 that they happened in. The end result is
the derivation of larger themes (like freedom or discrimination30) which a human rights
law or convention seeks to address and reverse. The reverse could be true as well:
large themes could be derived from human rights documents and then applied to the
Holocaust; an evaluation of whether the rights were violated or upheld is then
discussed.
Moreover, education about the Holocaust can help teach about human rights
through the visiting of sites of the Holocaust. The Holocaust is, again, unique in the
sense that many of the original architecture and original objects were left intact after the
camps were liberated and this serves to “concretise human rights and make them
28
KARTA, History and Human Rights: A Resource Manual (Warsaw, KARTA Centre: 2013), accessed June 29, 2014,
http://uczyc-sie-z-historii.pl/prawa-en/.
29
KARTA, History and Human rights
30
KARTA, History and Human rights
8
visible”.31 When a site is visited, especially an extremely brutal and sensitive one like,
for example, Auschwitz-Birkenau, the hands-on approach of guided tours, the history of
the place and seeing actual objects of victims and of their perpetrators makes the event
at hand seem much more real. Moreover, it makes the rights the victims had and the
violations of those rights have an immediate sense of urgency. A closer connection is
made to the place. When this connection is made with the Holocaust, it will be easier to
make apply that same connection with regards to contemporary human rights violations.
In addition, historic sites are able to install human rights education within their
sites as a way of incorporating human rights with the Holocaust. There is the Anne
Frank House in Amsterdam, the house where Anne Frank hid that is now a museum, in
which there is an exhibit called “Free2choose”. It gives visitors “film clips which are used
to encourage [visitors] to reflect upon problems and dilemmas in relation to civil
liberties”32, in addition to touching upon the Universal Charter of Human Rights. In the
German Buchenwald Memorial, their exhibitions focus on “thinking about crimes, taking
responsibility”33 and to raise awareness about human rights violations that are
happening presently through recognizing societal elements like discrimination and
inclusion.34 This fusion of the Holocaust and human rights sets a good foundation that
enables the development of looking at human rights through a broader perspective by
mixing both historical and current knowledge and applying this when studying human
rights.
31
European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights, Excursion to the past – teaching for the future: Handbook for
teachers (Auschwitz: 1996), accessed July 7, 2014, http://fra.europa.eu/sites/default/files/fra_uploads/1218Handbook-teachers-holocaust-education_EN.pdf.
32
European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights, Discover the past for the future
33
European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights, Discover the past for the future
34
European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights, Discover the past for the future
9
Finally, and very importantly, human rights education and Holocaust education
go hand in hand in that human rights universalize the Holocaust. As mentioned above,
the Holocaust is often taught within the context of how the country it’s being taught in
was affected by the Holocaust. In the Auschwitz-Birkeanu Memorial and Museum there
are even national exhibitions35 that do exactly that. The problem with this is that this
gives a very narrow-minded account of the Holocaust and means that more
intergenerational memories are passed on; this could potentially mean that inaccurate
information is being taught. Each nation doing this results in very conflicting conceptions
of the Holocaust and of conflicting memories. But by teaching the Holocaust through a
human rights outlook, this serves to make it a more universal event. As every human is
guaranteed basic human rights, applying this to the Holocaust can provide a way to
make it more connectable to everyone. Furthermore it can set an equal footing when
learning about the Holocaust so everyone receives the same information.
Of course there are always two sides to every story and linking human rights to
Holocaust education poses many challenges. An immediate challenge in teaching two
broad topics at one time is the conflict between subjects, where often one subject
overtakes the other one. A European study that tried to incorporate human rights when
teaching the Holocaust proved36 that in the case of school children, the Holocaust
education overtook the human rights education. This has implications because if
students are being taught mostly about one topic, they will have a difficult time making
the connection between the two and applying this to contemporary human rights issues.
35
“The national exhibitions,” Auschwitz-Birkeanu Memorial and Museum, accessed July 18, 2014,
http://en.auschwitz.org/z/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=53.
36
European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights, Discover the past for the future
10
Another implication is that often students do not get the “deep and profound”37
experience of the Holocaust to truly understand the human experience of the Holocaust.
The reason for this is that teachers themselves often do not have specialized
background in the Holocaust: they are simply passing on to their students the historical
facts of the Holocaust without any touch of empathy. In order to truly understand the
Holocaust and its victims, there must be some empathy felt on behalf of the student. As
this is not the case, the student wanders through the Holocaust teachings emotionally
indifferent to the event and its victims, and therefore less self-awareness or growth
occurs. There is no understanding regarding the importance of having and maintaining
human rights.
Finally, another issue is that human rights education is mainly taught by history
teachers.38 But the objective of human rights education is not to dwell too much into the
past, but to use the past to help learn about human rights violations today. By virtue of
their historical interest, history teachers do focus more on the past and this means
students do not address current issues.
Finally, especially in Europe, Holocaust education is often taught in the context of
the country it is being taught in and how the Holocaust affected that particular country.39
Therefore, when studying current human rights violations, all students do not get the
same consistent information and may look at these human rights violations and their
connection with the Holocaust differently and with their own biases. This could result in
less empathy for other victims of the Holocaust that are not from the students’ own
country.
37
Lindquist, “Informed COMMENTARY”,
Eckmann, “Exploring the relevance,”
39
Eckmann, “Exploring the relevance,”
38
11
In conclusion, as illustrated above, the Holocaust is an unprecedented, unique
event in world history that is substantially different from other genocides/mass human
rights violations that have happened previously, or even up until now. Despite this fact,
it can still be used as a tool in human rights education. First, awareness of what rights
were violated in the Holocaust, studying human rights acts that were created after the
atrocities of the Holocaust were found out about, and visiting of the authentic sites of the
Holocaust are learned about. Then, common principles discovered in human rights
education and of Holocaust education can be applied to nowadays human right issues.
Knowledge is gained with regards to these issues, and perhaps activists are gained as
well. Yehuda Bauer, Holocaust historian, wrote “What has happened before can happen
again. We are all possible victims, possible perpetrators…”40 But through awareness
and education, like with the Holocaust and human rights, there can be hope that
tragedies like the Holocaust will not happen again.
40
Johannes Houwink ten Cate, “The Future of Holocaust Studies,” Jewish Political Studies Review 22 (2010):
accessed July 7, 2014, http://www.jstor.org.ezproxy.library.ubc.ca/stable/25834874.
12
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13