International organisations in the globalisation of holocaust education

Abstract

This chapter provides an overview of main steps taken by international organisations to promote Holocaust education at the global level. While international bodies are still in the process of clearly defining their role and coordinating their action, an overarching priority remains: revise or develop European policies to ensure that this history is transmitted in fast-changing societies, especially in the eastern part of Europe which has inherited a dual sense of victimhood from the communist period. In parallel, the involvement of international, global bodies opens a whole set of new challenges as the subject attracts attention from educators in countries that have no connection at all to the history of the Jewish people and Nazi crimes. The Holocaust appears then to become a prism through which societies struggling with a violent history find a path to address complex and taboo issues of the past. Likewise, this globalisation movement encouraged by international organisations also seems to foster a vision of the Holocaust as a universal framework for the promotion of human rights, leading in turn to new challenges for educators who must also struggle against overly simplistic or distorted perceptions of an eminently complex historical matter.