The Department of Education of the Terezín Memorial, working in collaboration with the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum in Oświęcim, hosted a Czech-Polish educational seminar from September 19 to 22, 2024. This was the second part of this educational project.
The course was attended by a group of Czech schoolteachers who had previously met their Polish counterparts in Terezín in March of the same year. Please refer to the link here for the article covering the spring segment of the Czech-Polish educational seminar.
The program was devised for the attendees by lecturers from the International Center for Education about Auschwitz and the Holocaust (ICEAH) and delivered on-site. Following their arrival in Oświęcim on Thursday, participants had the opportunity to take a guided tour of the city’s historic center. Friday’s program got underway with a lecture on the educational agenda and goals of the ICEAH. This was followed by visits to the Museum’s departments that are not open to the public: the conservation workshop and the Department of Collections. During the afternoon lecture, the participants learned about survival strategies in the former Auschwitz concentration camp. In the early evening, they returned to the city and visited the Jewish Museum, followed by a guided tour of the Chewra Lomdej Misznajot Synagogue. The Saturday program began with a lecture on “Auschwitz in Popular Literatureˮ, followed by a workshop on “The Eleventh Commandment: Thou Shalt Not Be Indifferentˮ. Saturday afternoon opened with a guided tour of the former Auschwitz I camp area. This included places currently located outside the premises of the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum, such as the bakery, slaughterhouse, water station, and the Union-Werke factory complex. These areas are not included in the standard tour itinerary and are home to various companies. At the end of the seminar, Czech teachers were introduced to interesting projects devised by their Polish colleagues.
Jan Kaňa
