Empathy through education: Connecting younger and more global generations to Holocaust memory worldwide
“Despite our vow of Never again, we have seen mass violence and genocide after 1945. How do we navigate that?” Klaus Mueller asked, reflecting on questions he’s grappled with for decades. “And how do we navigate that, 80 years on, with students who have experienced discrimination or mass violence, or have family that has?”
For the US IHRA delegate and former Chair of the IHRA Committee on the Holocaust, Genocide, and Crimes against Humanity, the answers lie in finding new ways to communicate the relevance of the Holocaust to younger, more global generations, people who likely do not personally know anyone who experienced the Nazi era. This represents a major opportunity for the field – one that requires building a culture of listening and of exchange – and with the IHRA Reflections on Terminology for Holocaust Comparison, which Klaus co-authored, practitioners are better equipped to do exactly that.
Listening to the experiences of new audiences and welcoming them to the conversation on the Holocaust
In contrast to claims of impending “Holocaust fatigue,” some studies, including one conducted by the Arolsen Archives/rheingold institute, suggest that Gen Z’s interest in learning about the Nazi era is even greater than that of older generations.
When learning about the Nazi era, Gen Z will often try to draw conclusions about their own lives and try to better understand and grasp today’s world. “I see this as a strong connection. Each generation has followed that path,” Klaus says. “When we look back at a difficult past, we often strive to learn from it to create a better present and future.”
Each learner will also bring their lived experiences to the topic of the Holocaust. With more global audiences, these may vary more widely and may more likely include mass violence, colonialism, or racism.
When we look back at a difficult past, we often strive to learn from it to create a better present and future.
The key, Klaus says, is to listen, to express interest, to engage with these increasingly global experiences. Making connections with what students bring to the table makes it easier to find points of entry that can help better communicate the Holocaust’s enduring relevance. It can also help improve our understanding of past genocides.
However, practitioners should be careful not to erase the specific contexts behind different mass atrocities. This can cloud our understanding, and often leads to a competition of suffering.
“The suffering of individuals, in whatever genocidal context, is horrific and cannot be measured against each other,” Klaus stresses. “We do not differentiate genocides to develop a hierarchy of victims, but to understand the tools and mechanism used by perpetrators.”
The IHRA Reflections on Terminology for Holocaust Comparison can help practitioners navigate that important line by asking the right questions and creating a space where we listen to each other, support a culture of genuine engagement with the past, and counter fear and polarization.
Exchanging across disciplines and regions to deepen understanding
The value of nurturing a culture of listening and exchange also holds true for the field more generally. Welcoming a variety of perspectives, for example from genocide studies, has helped advance the field of Holocaust studies. Regular exchange between Holocaust and genocide experts also encourages connections that reach past academic debates and nurture conversations on current conflicts.
This is something Klaus has seen time and again throughout his career. One example, however, he will never forget. From 2010–2017, Klaus chaired a jointly run USHMM and Salzburg Global Holocaust Education and Genocide Prevention Initiative, which deliberately brought together experts from countries beyond the IHRA network to regularly exchange with the IHRA. At the series’ inaugural meeting, after a day of cautiously exploring the connections – and divisions – between the fields of Holocaust and genocide education, participants looked at a rough cut of testimony footage from survivors of the Rwandan genocide provided by the Foundation Voices from Rwanda.
“There was no narrator. We were just listening to people,” he recalls. “And at one point, the survivors stopped and said, ‘I want to remember those people who were killed by name.’ They just started naming people – and they didn’t stop.”
The value of nurturing a culture of listening and exchange also holds true for the field more generally.
The participants were deeply moved as they witnessed the first time these survivors of the Rwandan genocide were naming – were remembering – its victims, a practice that many in the room were intimately familiar with from Holocaust commemoration practices. This connected the participants and both deepened and opened up discussions.
“I understood more about Rwanda and the genocide in one hour than anything I had read before,” Klaus remembers. “Creating a space in which exchange is possible nurtures connection, not just on a theoretical level, but on an emotional one.”
Institutional outreach to emerging and global networks helps facilitate such cross-regional dialogues. The IHRA Committee on the Holocaust, Genocide, and Crimes against Humanity’s work with the Global Action Against Mass Atrocity Crimes (GAAMAC), now a Permanent International Partner of the IHRA, seeks to multiply such opportunities.
Guiding questions to help approach new audiences
Creating spaces for exchange and cultures of listening are key to communicating the relevance of the Holocaust to younger, more global generations. However, these spaces can be challenging to establish. Practitioners can turn to the IHRA Reflections on Terminology for Holocaust Comparison for guiding questions that promote thoughtful exchange when doing so.
This helps ensure that the uniqueness of the Holocaust and its relevance do not fade from memory. After all, as Klaus says, “conversations guided by questions are easier to continue.”
Guiding questions to engage new audiences
Will different audiences understand a term in different ways?
What background knowledge of the Holocaust, the Second World War, European history, or Jewish history is being assumed in your choice of terms?
Does your audience have knowledge of the history of antisemitism? How has antisemitism been expressed in your region?
To what extent does your choice of terms and categories reflect Western presuppositions?
What are your audiences’ starting points as they relate to the Holocaust? For example, is the starting point how to combat antisemitism? Understanding the Second World War? The prevention of genocide today? What are the appropriate terms to reference these starting points?
What is known about mass atrocity crimes on the local level in your region? Are there any mass atrocity crimes that have a special relevance?
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