Holocaust survivors will share their very personal stories with South Carolina educators during a week of intensive study, July 13-18, at Columbia College . The annual Teaching of the Holocaust graduate workshop for teachers began in 1994 as a special program initiated by Columbia College and encouraged by a grant from the South Carolina Council on the Holocaust. From its beginning, this workshop has focused on the historical development of the Holocaust and methods and techniques employed in its teaching.
 
The lead presenter in this team-taught course is Dr. Mary Johnson from Facing History and Ourselves, Inc., a Boston-area educational institution which specializes in Holocaust Studies and the related issues of racism and discrimination and personal responsibility for moral choices, citizenship, and public policy. Dr. Tandy McConnell, a published scholar on the Holocaust, teaches Holocaust courses at Columbia College. During the workshop his areas of instruction are anti-Semitism and its origins, military history, and Nazi activities in Southern and Eastern Europe. Dr. Selden Smith, retired history professor of Columbia College and member of the S.C. Council on the Holocaust, also serves as an advisor and instructor for the program.
 
Rudy Herz, a German Jewish survivor of the Holocaust, spends a full day with the class as they examine the Weimar Republic and the rise of the Nazi Party and Hitler and the Nazi regime. As the teachers study the public policy directives, Herz shares personal memories and the sobering reality of how his family and the wider Jewish community suffered.
 
Participating teachers also engage with survivors from the Columbia area—the Goldbergs and the Millers, and from Charleston—Dientje Kalisky Adkins and Joe Engel, Tom Grossman from Florence, Manfred Katz from Statesville, North Carolina, and Ethel Stafford, an Army nurse in 1944-45, who witnessed the Holocaust in Europe.
 
The workshop leaves a lasting impression on participants. “The Holocaust class inspired me to be a better teacher and to get involved in Holocaust education on a broader scale.  Because of the class, I am training other teachers on how and why teachers should teach about the Holocaust,” said Emily Taylor, a teacher from Swansea High School.
 
Six years ago, the International Task Force on Holocaust Memory, History, and Research established a program of sending 25 Eastern European teachers to Holocaust courses in the United States. While the Soviet Union dominated Eastern Europe, Soviet textbooks did not mention the Holocaust. The Columbia College Holocaust workshop was one of several courses in the United States picked for this opportunity for the Europeans. As a result, teachers from Slovakia, Hungary, or Estonia have come to Columbia each summer. This year two teachers from Estonia are attending. At the end of the workshop, the Estonians will go to Washington, D.C., for a special conference at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum before returning to Europe. The other European teachers will attend courses in New York, New Jersey, Illinois, and Florida.
 
The South Carolina Council on the Holocaust was created in 1989 by the General Assembly of South Carolina to honor the survivors who moved to South Carolina after World War II and to honor the South Carolina soldiers who liberated the Nazi concentration camps. The Council was also charged with the responsibility for working on educational programs so that the Holocaust would never be repeated. The agency has 12 members appointed by the Governor, the Lt. Governor, and the Speaker of the House.
 
For more information please contact:
Barbara Parker
Administrative Assistant
Dept. of History and Political Science
bparker@colacoll.edu
p-803-786-3785