Yad Vashem’s free educational course with UCL attracts 1,700 participants

Yad Vashem’s new free online education course aiming to boost Holocaust awareness worldwide has seen almost 2,000 participants sign up in its first few weeks.

The scheme, geared towards educators, will consist of three hours of learning per week for three weeks. It has already attracted 1,700 participants across 78 countries, mainly from the UK, but including Poland, Australia, Italy, Germany, USA and Brazil.

It comes at a time when levels of Holocaust awareness and education is at an extreme low around the world; especially amongst millennials. In one recent US nation-wide survey, 63 per cent of respondents did not know 6 million Jews were killed during the Holocaust, while one in ten said they had never heard of the Holocaust.

It will be led by scholars at Yad Vashem, who will cover the history of the Holocaust, while experts from University College London’s Centre for Holocaust Education will share their research into teaching and learning about the subject.

By the end of the MOOC (Massive Open Online Course), students will be “empowered” to develop their own material about the history of the Holocaust through “innovative” approaches.

Ruth-Anne Lenga, programme director of the UCL Centre for Holocaust Education, said the course will “boldy but sensitively” tackle the “misconceptions and preconceptions which circulate about the Jewish people in Europe”.