Children taught about Holocaust through eyes of Welsh child refugees
Free teaching materials built around video testimonies from child refugees who came to Wales in the 1930s to escape Nazi persecution.
An ambitious project encouraging pupils to learn about the Holocaust through the video testimonies of young Welsh refugees has been developed for schools in English and Welsh.
The Holocaust Education Resources for students and teachers in Wales has been produced by The Jewish History Association of Wales/ Cymdeithas Hanes Iddewig De Cymru, (JHASW/CHIDC) as part of a project called the European Network of Testimony Based Digital Education.
Image from Inge Hack’s interview from the archive of the USC Shoah Foundation – The Institute for Visual History and Education, 1997. For more information: https://sfi.usc.edu/.
Key topics for primary and secondary school students will include pre-war Jewish life, the responsibility of ordinary people, Jewish resistance and Britain’s response. A range of sources, including photographs, parliamentary debates and trial transcripts are also available.
In English and Welsh, they include online classroom activities, educational resources, and teacher guidance notes on the history of the Holocaust and its connection to Wales. They are aligned to the new Welsh curriculum and free to use.
The materials are built around video testimonies from child refugees who came to Wales in the 1930s to escape Nazi persecution. These survivor testimonies were collated from the USC (University of southern California) Shoah Foundation visual history archive.
They tell local stories and show Jews as part of a collective, shared Welsh history and also give voice to the individuality and common humanity of Jewish lives and communities destroyed by the Holocaust.
Emelye Clifford, JHASW/CHIDC education officer says the effects of social media and the rise in antisemitic hate incidents are a “chilling reminder” that the lessons of the Holocaust continue to have urgent relevance.
Clifford believes the new Holocaust education materials can “confront the devastating, disorienting truths of how and why the Holocaust happened”, as well as “educating children on the full depth and vitality of Jewish life that was lost.”
As part of the project, she has “been struck by the extraordinary voices and memories of the Holocaust survivors who escaped to Wales”, calling them “enlightening and profoundly necessary”.
JHASW/CHIDC is now training teachers in Wales on using the resources in the classroom. The charity aims to apply for additional funding to expand its education resources further.
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