CULLOWHEE, N.C. — In 2025, the North Carolina Center for the Advancement of Teaching offered two Holocaust education opportunities generously supported by the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany (Claims Conference).
These two programs, Teaching the Holocaust: Resources and Reflections, and The Gathering of Holocaust Educators, provided opportunities for educators to engage in discourse about the Holocaust, and return to their classrooms prepared to shape student understanding and remembrance of the history.
Teaching the Holocaust: Resources and Reflections aimed to support educators in gaining an understanding of the precursors, events, and consequences of the Holocaust, and how best to convey not only the history, but the meaning that it can have in the lives of our students.
Over a week-long trip to Washington, D.C., participants explored the exhibits and resources of the internationally esteemed United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, alongside museum staff and teacher fellows.
The Gathering of Holocaust Educators followed Teaching the Holocaust: Resources and Reflections. Educators who participated in the first program, or comparable intensive Holocaust education programs, joined for a deeper discussion of teaching the Holocaust.
Participants explored writing and literature in styles such as personal narrative and memoir, biography, and poetry. Additionally, educators analyzed music, art, and film.
The Gathering of Holocaust Educators focused on the power of individuals’ personal stories as a vehicle for teaching about the Holocaust, to involve students in appropriate and powerful study of the topic.
The Gathering of Holocaust Educators and Teaching the Holocaust: Resources and Reflections, the educational experience in Washington, DC, are made possible with Assistance from the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany. It is sponsored by the Foundation "Remembrance, Responsibility and Future" and supported by the German Federal Ministry of Finance.
