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Arrival of Hungarian Jews in the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration and extermination camp in 1944
Photo: Reinhard Schultz / IMAGO
»Urgency and haste are required«: The advocacy group for German teachers calls for more use of literature about the Holocaust in school remembrance work.
This is what the German Association of German Studies in the German Association of German Studies writes in its recently published "Paderborn Declaration".
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To this end, fictional and authentic Holocaust literature should be included, particularly in the subject German – also in the form of comics, graphic novels, films or digital offerings.
It is also important to deal with eyewitness interviews.
The initiators of the declaration, led by Sascha Feuchert, a professor specializing in Holocaust literature at the University of Giessen, cited the deaths of the last survivors of National Socialism as well as "numerous frightening events and occurrences" in recent times as the reason for their initiative, which "the dangers of Document repression and forgetting with ominous clarity«.
Just last year, the education and science union complained that many teachers felt left alone in the fight against anti-Semitism.
The problem is growing, ethnic and religious conflicts overwhelm the schools.
Exactly how big the problem of anti-Semitism in schools in Germany is is difficult to pin down.
However, a study in 2020 came to the conclusion that the problem had become entrenched.
In its statement, the German teachers' association warned that schools should be used for a modern culture of remembrance, since this is the only social space that everyone goes through.
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