Holocaust teaching must address human rights: EU agency

(VIENNA) - Teaching about the Holocaust in schools should also include discussion on current rights issues, an EU agency said Tuesday ahead of the 65th anniversary of the Auschwitz death camp's liberation.

Schools should "go beyond the mere transmission of historical facts to include discussion and debate on past and present human rights issues," the EU's Agency for Fundamental Rights said in a new report.

The report examines the role of historical sites and museums in Holocaust education as well as human rights education in the European Union.

"It is not enough to listen to a witness who is over 80 years old if you do not connect his/her experience to the present time, if you don't recognise there is still a deficit in human rights today," the agency quoted one teacher as saying.

Based on the findings of its report, the agency suggested that EU countries better integrate rights education into the school curriculum.

Teacher education and training should also include both learning about the Holocaust and human rights more generally, it said.

Many of the students the agency interviewed said they would "appreciate a stronger connection to the present in education activities about the Holocaust, both at school and at historical sites and museums," it said.

Only one of the 22 surveyed Holocaust commemoration sites regarded informing people about human rights as its most important objective.

Study on Holocaust and human rights education 
European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights