These sessions are free to attend and open to anyone who has previously undertaken an introductory teacher training workshop, or other training, with the Holocaust Educational Trust.
- Unless otherwise stated, all sessions will take place on Zoom.
- You will need a computer with a camera and microphone to participate.
To sign up for any of the following seminars please click here (see below for further details):
- Wednesday 11 October - Jewish Resistance during the Holocaust
- Sunday 22 October 2023 - Jewish Refugees to Britain
- Sunday 5 November 2023 - Escape from Denmark
- Sunday 26 November 2023 - Teaching about Genocide
- Sunday 3 December 2023 - Jewish Refugees to Britain: Stories from across the UK
- Sunday 21 January 2024 - Scottish Teacher Study Seminar (in-person)
- Sunday 10 March 2024 - Female Couriers during the Holocaust
- Sunday 19 May 2024 - The Holocaust in Hungary
Wednesday 11 October 2023 (16:30-18:00 – on Zoom)
Jewish Resistance during the Holocaust
Join us to mark the 80th anniversary of the Sobibór Uprising of 14th October 1943, and learn more about Jewish resistance during the Holocaust. Between May 1942 and September 1943 at least 170,000 Jews were murdered at Sobibór extermination camp in German-occupied Poland, almost all of them on arrival. The rebellion in Sobibór, and the similar revolt in Treblinka on 2nd August 1943, represent arguably the most spectacular acts of Jewish resistance during the Holocaust. These two insurrections, carried out against overwhelming odds yet saving the lives of dozens of people otherwise condemned to certain death, challenge one of the most common student misconceptions about the Holocaust – that Jews did not fight back – whilst also highlighting the huge obstacles Jews faced, thus serving as an entry-point to exploration of Jewish resistance more widely.
Martin Winstone, Senior Historical Advisor at the Holocaust Educational Trust will explore the history of the Sobibór Uprising and the pedagogy of teaching about Jewish resistance.
Sunday 22 October 2023 (10:00-16:30 – on Zoom)
Jewish Refugees to Britain
December 2023 will mark the 85th anniversary of the Kindertransport, the arrival of approximately 9,500 mostly Jewish child refugees from Nazi persecution to Britain.
In this workshop Mike Levy will explore the history of the Kindertransport and the unsung heroes whose work made the scheme possible. Dr Jennifer Craig Norton will present her research on the untold stories of the almost 20,000 Jewish women who became domestic servants in Britain to escape the Nazis.
In the afternoon will be joined by colleagues from the Association of Jewish Refugees (AJR) who will highlight some of the organisation’s free online resources including the Refugee Voices Testimony Archive, a collection of 280 filmed interviews with Jewish survivors and refugees from Nazi Europe who rebuilt their lives in Great Britain. Alex Maws will speak about the AJR’s UK-Holocaust Map and discuss how it can be used by teachers to explore local connections to the Holocaust across Britain.
On Sunday 3 December 2023 we will host a follow-up workshop Jewish Refugees to Britain: Stories from across the UK exploring stories of Jewish migration to Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland during the 1930s.
Sunday 5 November 2023 (9:30-12:30 – on Zoom)
Escape from Denmark
This October marks the 80th anniversary of the dramatic escape of Jews from Denmark to neutral Sweden in 1943.
In this session, Yiftach Meiri from Yad Vashem’s International School for Holocaust Studies will explore the history of these events. A second workshop delivered by the Holocaust Educational Trust will discuss a number of primary-appropriate works of prose fiction which were inspired by this history and explore possibilities for their inclusion in the curriculum from Year 6 upwards.
Sunday 26 November 2023 (10:00-16:30 – on Zoom)
Teaching about Genocide
9 December 2023 marks the 75th anniversary of the adoption of the United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide, developed to a significant extent in response to the Holocaust. However, ever since 1948, the relationship between the Holocaust and other genocides has been a source of debate and misunderstanding, whilst the question of which other historical and contemporary events may be considered genocides is one of great political and societal sensitivity. This workshop aims to help teachers to navigate these challenging topics.
Professor Phillip Spencer will discuss the evolution of the concept of genocide, the difficulties in finding consensus over an agreed definition, and the relationship of genocide to the Holocaust. We will also be joined by two educators who have worked to integrate study of other genocides into their school curriculums. Sam Hunt MBE is Deputy Headteacher at Sandhurst School in Bracknell Forest and sits on the board for Remembering Srebrenica and NGO Survivors Fund, which supports survivors of the genocide in Rwanda. Andy Lawrence MBE is a teacher at Hampton School; over the past decade Andy has run various genocide education initiatives across the school, including the student campaign group Genocide80Twenty.
Sunday 3 December 2023 (10:00-16:30 – on Zoom)
Jewish Refugees to Britain: Stories from across the UK
On 2 December 1938, the first Kindertransport arrived in the Harwich in Essex, bringing some 200 children from a Jewish orphanage in Berlin which had been destroyed during the Kristallnacht pogrom. In our second CPD event marking the 85th anniversary of the Kindertransport, this workshop will explore the diverse stories of Jewish refugees who fled to the UK during the 1930s.
Professor Andrea Hammel (Aberystwyth University) will present the work of the Refugees from National Socialism in Wales: Learning from the Past for the Future project and discuss her latest book The Kindertransport: What Really Happened (released November 2023).
Professor Hannah Holtschneider (The University of Edinburgh) will talk about the Jewish Lives, Scottish Spaces: Jewish Migration to Scotland, 1880-1950 project and the Points of Arrival digital resource pack for schools which explores Jewish migration to Scotland in the 19th and 20th centuries.
Dr Pamela Linden Aveyard (Visiting Researcher, Queen’s University Belfast) will explore the reactions of the Belfast Jewish community to Jewish refugees attempting to flee areas of Nazi-controlled Europe.
Sunday 21 January 2024 (10:00-16:30 – in-person - TBC)
Scottish Teacher Study Seminar
Details of this in-person seminar will be released soon.
Sunday 10 March 2024 (9:30-12:45 – on Zoom)
International Women's Day Lecture: Female Couriers during the Holocaust
In this session Orit Margoliot (independent researcher and educator) will present Yad Vashem’s Spots of Light: To Be a Woman in the Holocaust exhibition. The exhibition gives expression to the unique voice of Jewish women in the Holocaust: their choices and responses in the face of the evil, brutality and relentless hardship that they were forced to grapple with. Spots of Light forms one of 10 ready2print exhibitions available free to educational institutions via Yad Vashem, details will be provided during the workshop.
Shlomit Steiner (Yad Vashem’s International School for Holocaust Studies) will explore the story of female couriers (kashariyot) during the Holocaust. The kashariyot were young Jewish women who undertook dangerous missions across German-occupied Eastern Europe. Adopting false identities, they transported documents, underground newspapers, forged documents, money, weapons and ammunition in and out of the ghettos of Poland, Lithuania, and parts of Russia.
Sunday 19 May 2024 (10:00-13:30)
The Holocaust in Hungary
May 2024 will mark the 80th anniversary of the beginning of the deportation of approximately 440,000 Jews from Hungary, most of them to their deaths in Auschwitz-Birkenau. However, although these deportations began only after Germany occupied the country in March 1944, the Hungarian authorities were deeply complicit in the dispossession, enslavement and, ultimately, murder of the Jews living under their control, both before and after the German invasion. This remains a highly divisive issue in modern Hungary, whose present government has promoted a very different narrative of the Holocaust era.
In this session we will explore the ghettoization and deportation of Hungarian Jews in 1944. Martin Winstone will explore the current dangers of Holocaust distortion in Hungary.
We particularly welcome attendance from those participating in the Teacher Study Visit to Budapest in May 2024.