Task Force for International Co-operation on
Holocaust Education, Remembrance, and Research

Panel discussion introductory remarks

Jeremy Cresswell
Foreign and Commonwealth Office, Great Britain

It is a privilege for me to be taking part in this conference, which is addressing issues that remain as important today as they were 50 years ago. I think all of us were inspired by the words of President Havel this morning, when he pointed with absolute clarity to the dangers of racism and the importance of remembering, and teaching, the lessons of the holocaust.

This session will focus on the experiences gained from a liaison project undertaken with the Czech authorities by the Task Force for International Co-operation on Holocaust Education, Remembrance, and Research at the suggestion of President Havel's office. As the British representative on the Task Force, I have been asked to give a brief explanation of what the Task Force is, and what it does. I approach this with due modesty, conscious that several distinguished Task Force representatives from Israel, the Netherlands, Poland and the USA are also here this afternoon, and are represented on the panel as well.

Over recent years, there has been an increased willingness internationally to explore and address a range of issues relating to the holocaust, including the location and return of assets belonging to those who perished in the holocaust, and efforts to ensure that the remaining survivors receive compensation. This process, painful in many ways, has also served to remind us that the lessons of the past are directly relevant to today, and that at the end of this century we have an obligation to try to ensure that the tragedies of the past are not repeated - and that ignorance of history is no excuse. It was in this spirit that Swedish Prime Minister Goran Persson launched the Task Force initiative in May 1998 and invited US President Bill Clinton and British Prime Minister Tony Blair to join him. Subsequently, Israel, Germany, the Netherlands, Poland, France and Italy have joined the Task Force. The Israeli government is currently in the chair, which will pass to Sweden later this month. Membership of the Task Force is voluntary and the Task Force has no designated lifespan. It will cease functioning when it considers it has done as much as it usefully can.

In the declaration to the Washington conference on holocaust-era assets in December 1998, Task Force members made their convictions clear. The declaration noted that international attention must encompass holocaust education, remembrance, and research, and that efforts and resources in this direction should be expanded to reinforce the historic meaning and enduring lessons of the holocaust, and to combat its denial. To this end, Task Force members committed their governments to encourage parents, teachers, and civic, political and religious leaders to undertake with renewed vigour and attention holocaust education, research and remembrance, with a special focus on their own countries' histories. They intended to strengthen their existing programme s, or launch new ones to advance this common objective. The Task Force countries pledged their commitment to this endeavour and joined together to develop unprecedented diplomatic co-operation in this field. They called on all other governments participating in the Washington conference to also take steps to strengthen existing holocaust education, remembrance, and research efforts, and to undertake new ones where necessary, and they invited other countries to work with the Task Force to pursue these common goals.

A key aspect of the Task Force, which I should underline, is that as part of its informal and un-bureaucratic approach each national delegation includes representatives of both the government and non-governmental organisations (NGOs). The non-governmental organisations bring a range of wide and deep experiences in the holocaust education and research field, and they considerably enrich the process. This synergy between governments and non-governmental organisations, with the governments providing political support and demonstrating political will and the NGOs bringing expertise, is vital and possibly unique. I would like to take this opportunity to pay tribute to the NGOs working in the Task Force for their great contribution to its activities. The initial priorities agreed last year by the Task Force included:

_ developing a catalogue of holocaust education, remembrance, and research efforts already under way,

_ making available existing or new written material for holocaust education, remembrance, and research, noting in particular the specially commissioned Swedish book, entitled "Tell Ye Your Children",

_ promoting openness and accessibility of public and private archives bearing on the history of the holocaust, including holocaust-era asset issues,

_ giving further impetus to international efforts in holocaust education, remembrance, and research.

Work has moved further with some success in all these areas and in others, including the publication of education guidelines. Over recent months, Task Force efforts have focused on developing the notion of liaison projects, the possible establishment of an endowment fund to support relevant activities, progress on establishing national days of remembrance, and support work in preparation for the high-level international Stockholm forum meeting next January. The Task Force will hold its own sixth meeting in Jerusalem next week.

I would like to highlight two particular aspects of the Task Force's current work. First, liaison projects, which are directly relevant to what we are discussing here this afternoon. The intention here is for the Task Force to offer to share experiences and, if useful, provide support for activities in other countries relating to holocaust education, remembrance and research. While we are conscious of the fact that each country has its own particular experiences, perceptions and perspectives relating to the holocaust, nonetheless there are certain common elements that can be brought to bear, and experiences that might usefully be shared, for example, in the way national education policies and practices are formulated. Once approached by a government, or indeed by a non-governmental organisation in another country, Task Force members are ready to offer their co-operation and support. The work with the Czech authorities, which we are discussing this afternoon, is the first example of such Task Force activity. The Task Force stands ready to do more at the request of others who might be interested.

I might also mention briefly the issue of Remembrance Days, as this is something on which we are working specifically in Britain at the moment. The notion here is to make available internationally information about experiences from different countries on how best to commemorate the holocaust, and to encourage the establishment of Remembrance Days. This is an area where it is particularly clear that each country may wish to handle the issue differently. In the British case, we are about to embark on a process of public consultation. The government has prepared the ground over several months of discussion with relevant NGOs, in order to determine whether the consensus and enthusiasm exists to institute a National Holocaust Remembrance Day in Britain. Possible elements of such a Remembrance Day could include public manifestations of remembrance and particular educational modules in school. This is not an uncontroversial area, and I expect that an interesting debate will ensue in my country. Prime Minister Blair has indicated his positive attitude towards instituting such a day of remembrance.

Perhaps I may conclude this brief introduction, Mr Chairman, by quoting from a discussion paper the Task Force agreed and published last year. "Holocaust education and remembrance will help us recall the importance of fighting intolerance, racism and other challenges to basic human values. As we enter the new millennium, we should encourage and reinforce work in many nations to strengthen holocaust education efforts, to create new ones, and to finally begin such efforts where they have been overlooked. Through education and remembrance, we shall do all we can to ensure that the crimes of the holocaust are neither forgotten, nor repeated. It is, and will remain, the shared responsibility of parents and teachers, as well as of political, religious and civil leaders, to teach our children that moral choices exist. Countless wrong and evil choices, accompanied by mass indifference, made the holocaust possible. Holocaust education efforts undertaken by many countries for a number of years have been encouraging."

The declaration concluded by saying: "The unique importance of the holocaust, and its lessons to contemporary society, however, require that the peoples of all countries engage in teaching about the holocaust and their countries' relationship to these events. International exchange and co-operation can greatly facilitate this work." This is the basis of the work of the Task Force. The Task Force is available as a resource on which others can draw, as a forum where we can mutually reinforce our determination to learn and implement the lessons of the holocaust, and as a demonstration of its member governments' determination to provide political support and underpinning to an issue which we believe remains central to the development of civilised humanity on our European continent and elsewhere.

I hope, Mr Chairman, that this brief outline of the Task Force's activities will provide a useful background to a rather more concrete discussion that I hope will now follow. Thank you.

Wesley Fisher
U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, Washington, USA

There is a phenomenal, wonderful, historical opportunity right now, here in this room. You have heard from Dr Singer that the population of the Czech Republic is supportive of education concerning the holocaust. You have heard that the population needs, as you already know, some assistance with regard to the question of tolerance. We have begun, with the kind assistance of the Ministry of Education, discussions internationally regarding holocaust education, but perhaps much more importantly, there is a development within the Czech Republic, between the Ministry of Education, as I understand it, and the Terezin Memorial and other institutions, to try to conduct massive teacher training in the Czech Republic. Let me give you some idea of the issues involved, as I believe we see them here.

We understand that there are approximately 10,000-12,000 teachers of history in the Czech Republic. Every single one of those teachers ought to know enough about the holocaust to be able to teach it. How much is taught, when it is taught in the curriculum, is another type of question. But those 10,000-12,000 teachers need some training. Our understanding is that it may be possible to begin training, say, 400 teachers in programme s within the Czech Republic at the current time. That is wonderful. There is a question, however, as to who will train the trainers, and in that respect we are prepared to be as helpful as possible in trying to improve the level of knowledge and sharing our own experience in our own countries with those people who may wind up training the teachers in the Czech Republic. It is quite remarkable that during the past half-year representatives of the government of the Czech Republic, in particular the Ministry of Education and the Office of the President, have been able to sit opposite a very powerful - I just mean "large" - group of countries and institution, whereby Yad Vashem in Israel, the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, the Netherlands, Poland, Germany and other countries, with all their various institutions, have been able to help. It is my impression that everything is ready here, that people in the Czech Republic know what it is necessary to do. It is simply necessary now to go and do it. I think that we would be very appreciative if in the near future it would be possible to move to very concrete plans as to how we may be of assistance in that development.

Shulamit Imber
Yad Vashem, Israel

Shalom. First of all, I am very happy to be here and it is exciting for me, especially when I sit with educators. We talked with the teachers this morning. They had taken a day off school, and they said: "We left all our pupils and we came here, because it is so important for us, and we are very enthusiastic to come to this conference and to hear what you are willing to actually offer to us."

Because people from the Ministry of Education are sitting here, I just want to explain to you why it is so important to train teachers, and why it is so important to enlist the Task Force - those of us from Yad Vashem, people from Washington and people from the Netherlands and from other places - to help you. When we began to train teachers at Yad Vashem about seven years ago, we happily had three or four teachers from Israel who were willing and said: "We'll come for a whole-year course." When we were offering to train teachers about the holocaust, people thought we were putting them in the gas chambers, and they were very afraid of this issue: "We know that we have to relate, we know that we have to talk about the holocaust and teach about the holocaust, but we are very much afraid."

First of all, there is a lack of knowledge. If we teach mathematics or if we teach physics, if we teach any other humanistic subject that we have to do, we learn at university about that. But here you want us to teach about the holocaust, and we never took any thorough course about holocaust education, so teachers are very much afraid because there is a lack of knowledge. So, first, we have to come to the teachers and say: "You have to come to the courses and, first of all, we are offering you knowledge." We can't take for granted that a graduate teacher knows about the holocaust. This is the first thing.

The second thing - and this is the difference between an educator and a person from academia - is that the educator has a student in the classroom, and he afterwards asks all sorts of moral questions that relate to the subject of his teaching and relate to a thing that happened in society. The teacher has to expose himself not only to teach the holocaust as a lesson of history, but immediately to address all sorts of moral questions and the lessons of what he is teaching. Therefore the training offered to teachers cannot only focus on history; it has to be interdisciplinary. There have to be all sorts of moral questions: not only how it happened, but why it happened. Students today want to know why it happened. If they have to take something into their world and to learn the lessons of it, they have to know why. So the teacher not only has to teach the subject, he also has to address the "how" questions - how it is humanly possible, the human story of the holocaust.

The third thing that I think is very important is to offer the teacher materials to go into the classroom. Our courses and our experience in developing things can help you make short cuts and provide you with material that you can take to the classroom. We do it in Yad Vashem, and the Washington Museum does it. We sent a lot of materials here so as to be able to share our experience and the philosophy of teaching the holocaust. It is very important to have a very thorough philosophy as to how to teach about the holocaust, and that the teacher has the materials to take into the classroom.

Thea J. Blankert-van Veen
Ministry of Health, Welfare and Sport, the Netherlands

You have heard many things about the importance of teacher training about the holocaust. I want to emphasise the role of the government, not only in your country but also in ours. We, the Netherlands, were an occupied country during the Nazi regime. We had all the roles you can have during the war: we had bystanders, perpetrators and we had people who said "well, it's a good regime" - and of course, we had the victims. And after the war, we find it very important not only to remember this horrible time, but also to teach our children about the choices people made in wartime. Because of that, in the Netherlands we have not only an educational system, but also many memorial centres and war museums where educators and people who work in museums work together - and they are supported by the government in that.

It is very important not only that the government, as your government, says it is an important thing and we will put it in our curriculum and we will do something about that, but it is even more important to give not only mental support to that but also financial support. So, in the Netherlands, we have developed a couple of NGOs who are mediators for the education system and for training about the holocaust, and not only the holocaust. We see it a little bit broader. The holocaust was, of course, the most important thing in World War Two, but we are all very interested in the questions my colleague from Israel has already mentioned - questions like: how was it possible? what choices did people make during the war? what happened after the war, not only with the material assets but also how were people treated? That is what we try to give to the educators and to the youngest in our country in museums and in memorial centres.

In the Task Force, we have invited a delegation from the Czech Republic to the Netherlands, not to show them how good we are or how things happened in the Netherlands, or to show that you have to do it our way in your country, but because we think it is very important to talk to the delegation, and to ask them: what are your problems in your country? Look at our problems, look at the way we have done it - and we are not ready yet. We are still developing. So we asked the delegation to come to the Netherlands. It was a very good delegation: people from your government, people from museums in the Czech Republic, people who are educators and so on. We made a trip around the Netherlands - we are a small country, so it was possible to do that in just four days. We let them talk to the people working in the museums and in the memorial centres, and we let them talk to educators. I am very curious as to how the delegation felt about their visit to Holland. I hope not only to continue this kind of invitation to delegations, but also I hope that we will co-operate and exchange ideas and expertise, because I learnt from the delegation that was in the Netherlands that your problems here with education and the holocaust - and with the regime after the holocaust, after the Nazi regime - and the problems in your society now, are not so different from the problems of society in the Netherlands. Mr Bauer spoke this morning about those fine democracies, but in democracies we also have problems with our history and the role we played in history. I hope that we can co-operate and exchange experiences further with your country in the Task Force group. I hope that the contacts your delegation made in Holland will continue, so that we can meet again in a year or so and say: "Well, we have learnt from each other."

I would like to talk about a study trip undertaken in cooperation with Yad Vashem Memorial and Yad Vashem International School of Holocaust. Mrs. Shulamid Imber gave a brief overview of how that institution prepares and trains teachers in that issue. On the basis of my own personal experience, from what I could see and hear together with several other Czech teachers and a Terezin Museum staff member, I can only state that a substantial portion of information obtained in the Yad Vashem seminars can be implemented in our system of education. I say a "portion of information" because we live in the Czech Republic and some things need to be taken from the point of view of its system of education. I would like to thank Mrs. Shulamid Imber again for having sent us the entire production of their educational department. We will use these materials in methodological materials under preparation, which will be structured for elementary schools and for secondary schools. Experience gained at Yad Vashem will become part of a comprehensive system how to approach this topic. It would be probably quite a different discussion if it were about Dr. Pavlat's analysis of our textbooks, but in the past year there appeared several titles which deal with this issue. Of course, it depends on each teacher how he can work with these materials. To be specific, one title whose publication we will see to, is the Swedish publication talked about by the Swedish representative here. It will be published in Czech and the methodological part will be completed in collaboration with Terezin Memorial and the Educational and Cultural Center of the Jewish Museum. The Ministry of Education will support a comprehensive system of instruction and Czech teachers will take up the Holocaust issue in training programs prepared by Terezin Memorial and the Educational and Cultural Center. Specific experience from the Israeli system of teacher training is acceptable for us, but here I again have to caution we have to adapt it for our Czech system of education. Some things need to be stressed, others presented for our circumstances. A book entitled "About A Boy Who Became A Number" was published in the Czech Republic. It was already mentioned by Dr. Pavlat; it is about reaction of a small boy about his Holocaust experience. We purchased the publication and Yad Vashem has a very well presented methodological part explaining how to communicate this issue to small children. We start with small children, which is the first path we embarked on. It is a proof that we can make an immediate use of Israeli materials in respect of the Czech version which has been published and which we purchased for our schools.

Unfortunately I could not finish my paper which included information about educational activities of Terezin Memorial. The paper is going to be published, however, so that nothing is lost.

When preparing this conference, we came to an agreement with Deputy Minister of Education Mr. Roupec, who is present here, that the first round of teacher training for the first 400 teachers will take place. Subsequently, they would, in turn, train additional teachers at their schools.

In the framework of preparations for this conference there also were discussions at the Educational and Cultural Center of the Jewish Museum, where a group of experts discussed the methods of realizing this whole thing. The discussion is not over and it is leaning in the direction where Terezin Memorial offers to organizationally provide for three-day seminars, of which one day would be dedicated to Czech Jewish history issues, the second to the history of Holocaust, and the last one would be taken up with Romany issues. On my part, this is a very specific offer and I think it should be used.

Dr Pojar

I head the Educational and Cultural Center of the Jewish Museum. This institution has two main types of programs - educational and cultural. In our educational programs we train teachers, students and pupils about Czech Jewish history issues, cultural contributions of Czech Jews and, of course, about Holocaust issues. I welcome the offer from two important institutions I visited, Yad Vashem in Jerusalem and the Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C. I would like to talk about one prosaic matter which happens to be finances. I need to ask the representatives of these institutions if they provide any financial assistance to enable enrollment in the seminars they organize and to which they invite us. The Yad Vashem seminars which one staff member of our Center attended cost some one hundred thousand crowns a person. It is a large sum for any organization mentioned here. I would like to repeat my inquiry to the representatives of these institutions. At our Center, we really need to send one or two permanent staff members to the training, so they could dedicate their time to that issue and could in a well-informed way train our teachers in Holocaust questions.

Just to react to your remark. The teachers that came to Yad Vashem now were subsidised and we had a deal with Dr Munk. Really four teachers came and we set up a price that they could stand and we can continue doing the same thing and talk about it. If the course is effective to the teacher, we can expand these things.

What Shulamid has mentioned is essentially correct, but I want to answer immediately to the challenge that my friend, Mr Pojar, has presented. Usually we have 12 international seminars at Yad Vashem each year. Every one of those seminars lasts 2-3 weeks. Usually when the participants can cover the expenses, it is OK. But in many cases those participants, specifically when they come from the former Soviet Union or communist regimes, they cannot cover their expenses. So we have a system that we cover it. If it is organised - and this is our suggestion - a group of senior teachers who would be trained to be the teachers of the teachers, and they will come for 2-3 weeks´ seminar at Yad Vashem. We shall ask them only to pay the flight tickets and we shall undertake the rest. We shall raise the funds which are needed with the support of our ministry and on our own. And this is a challenge to you to come and pay a visit and to take this seminar.

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contribution in Russian

David Singer

The whole purpose of this intergovernmental Task Force is to address these issues globally. We understand that there are many needs and that indeed there are financial issues which are very real. Right now the first country where there is this sort of discussion is the Czech Republic. The most important thing ultimately is for the Czech Republic to develop its own domestic programmes, its internal programmes for teacher training in this area. That will cost money of course, but its not the cost of sending ten thousand people to various countries abroad. The question of the cost of training the trainers, as Mr Shalev pointed out, is something that can be discussed. We believe that it would be best discussed in a planned manner, whereby we talk about this as a long-term plan with you in the Czech Republic, so that in fact it can grow and eventually hopefully this will be a matter that is not... well, it will be on a different plane. It is already in the Czech Republic quite developed, it is not a question of starting from nothing. I think that we should note that there is discussion, as Mr Creswell pointed out, of an endowment in the Task Force, and obviously we are discussing these financial matters. I would point out that thus far this summer as a first experiment, that educators from the Czech Republic went to Israel, the Netherlands and the United States in what was share in costs. I believe that the ministry of education paid the air fares and the receiving countries paid the rest of the expenses.

Schulamid Imber

I just want to add to this that we are learning from this experience now that we are doing here in the Czech Republic. I presume that from what we learn here, we will be able to expand it afterwards also to other places, but this is the first thing actually that the Task Force is really dealing with - a few countries giving teachers training, how we combine things together, how we learn the needs of the different countries and what they need and the system of education. But what you see here, and I think that this the important thing, the willingness of the centres that have this experience already to share what we have in terms of materials, in terms of teachers' training, in terms of philosophy, and really to go on. So this is actually the first thing and we believe things will expand from this.

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I am responsible for the Educational Committee of the Terezin Initiative here in Prague. This is the first time I hear about the Task Force. My question is about the same as was John Fitzgerald Kennedy´s: What can we do for the Task Force and what can the Task Force do for us? We are an organisation of holocaust survivors. So I think in the education of teachers, the personal experience is very important. So this is where I ask what can we do for the Task Force. The question is also what the Task Force can do for us. Thank you.

Jan Munk

I would just like to add one more thing to what I already said. I think it would be a step worth taking on the road we are discussing right now, if the representatives of Task Force countries attended one of the seminars we have in Terezin with Czech teachers, so they could see how we do the work here. I think it would provide a new quality to all the discussions on how are planning to work together. I take this opportunity to invite them on behalf of Terezin Memorial.

Schulamid Imber

I want to answer this Lady here. A part of what we do in seminars - because the story of the survivor and the individual is so important in the philosophy of teaching the holocaust, I mean the human story, the personal story. If you remember course at Yad Vashem, we had session with survivors. And in that session we talked and the teachers talked with the survivors. First of all, they heard about their experience, but more than that - how to tell the story to younger children or to children of different ages. So this could be... if Dr Munk said today that we help organised a course here in Theresienstadt and the Task Force took part in it, we can put in the programme the whole story of how to use survivors testimonies, how teachers should work with survivors in teaching the holocaust, and all this will be in the programme.

Jeremy Creswell

If I could address very slightly the question asked about what can you do for the Task Force and what can the Task Force do for you - I think that what the Task Force can bring is this combination of political will shown by governments and expertise and ability to spread that expertise, particularly from non-governmental organisations. That means in practice that if, as in the case of the Czech Republic, we find that there is political interest and political will to try and move things forward, then governments at the Task Force are very keen to support such ideas and to demonstrate what we are doing in our own countries. It means, as we are showing now, that the non-governmental organisations who have the expertise are very prepared to work with and share experience with and help those who want to gain from the experience that we have and to exchange experiences with them. And I think in that context it would be interesting if we could hear a little from many of the representatives, of those who went to the US and to the Netherlands during the summer. We heard a bit about what happened in Israel. It is very useful for us to get feedback. Even if that feedback is negative, that helps us. If we hear "no, this was not the right thing to do, it wasn't what we wanted to hear, it didn't actually help us", that helps us because we are finding our way forward as well. I think the Task Force itself is a very co-operative grouping, I won't call it an organisation. It co-operates among its members and it has a great will and determination to co-operate with those who wish to co-operate with it.

If I could just mention finally... the lady from Ukraine who referred to the wish of... or the need of a work being done in Ukraine, I certainly heard what was said there. This is maybe an area where we could work as well for that and approach to us either individual members of the Task Force or the Task Force corporately, it is what is needed. And would then be very willing to look at what the possibilities might be from the side of governments, like my own. I'd be very prepared then in that case to make sure that with the co-operation of the British embassy in Kiev that we know what is going on and we are prepared do discuss things with your government officials, for example. Thank you.

Michal Frankl

My name is Michal Frankl and I work at the Terezin Initiative Institute. In the beginning of the past decade almost nothing was taught about Holocaust in our schools and the same was true in respect of our textbooks. During that period, efforts on the part of the Jewish Community were aimed to criticize these deficiencies. Although this task is going to be always current, the approach should be now reversed to a degree. I think now we should introduce the principle of extended hand. It is the approach of an offer, when Jewish and Romany research institutions concerned will endeavor to provide some sort of service for teachers and students alike, so they could teach better and could have the feeling that they would know where to turn to with their questions and queries and where they could get, if not specific answers, then at least an advice where to look, who to ask, etc. etc. I think that the main type of information this center, which does not have to be the only institution, but some sort of a complex, would provide would be information about Jews in the vicinity of the town where the instructor concerned comes from, about their history, about important edifices, about important personalities, but above all about that what happened to the Jews who lived there before the war and all of a sudden disappeared. Findings about what happened during the war to students of a specific high school where the teacher works could be utilized in a big way.

Jakub Grygar

My name is Jakub Grygar and I work for the Educational and Cultural Center of the Jewish Museum. When evaluating experience gathered during a stay in Holland, where I also participated, someone came up with the idea of publishing an occasional leaflet where teachers and the public could find specific addresses, projaect announcement, where to find information. It could be an insert in an already existing periodical or a web page.

The problem mentioned is very closely related to a recent project of "Neighbors Who Vanished". It has already produced interim results and since it is not teacher-oriented but rather high school student-oriented and counts on their own initiative, we think it would be good to support it. Such as by publishing a collection of student papers in the end, which would motivate the students.

Also, it is important not to focus on Prague or Terezin Memorial only, but also on local museums. Here I have in mind assistance in the formation of local exhibitions. The assistance could come from the Educational Center or Terezin Memorial, it would all depend on agreement. These activities could also merit some Task Force support.

Yehuda Bauer

I think that we are discussing here something very crucial. This is the first time that a government has asked the Task Force countries to come in and advise them and help them in the development of such programmes. We are discussing here two aspects. One is bilateral agreements between Czech authorities and anyone of the Task Force countries. In the case of Yad Vashem, the possibility of a seminar of teachers that will go to Yad Vashem. I assume that there will be other countries that may offer similar programmes. These are bilateral proposals and bilateral actions, which are of tremendous importance because the local teachers will then have an experience of some other country, some other situation.

The other thing is the local process and in that process the Task Force as such, in collaboration with different Task Force countries, can create a group of experts who will aid the local authorities to develop teachers' seminars. That is the programme that Dr Munk was referring to, that is the kind of thing that the Task Force as a group can do. Both are important - I don't think that one should be at the expense of the other. The point is that every one of the Task Force countries, every one of the institutions - Yad Vashem, or the Museum, or any other institution in any other country - has no intention of telling people, whether it is in the Czech Republic, or Ukraine or wherever, to tell them what they should do, but simply to serve as a resource to be used to develop programmes that are appropriate to the local situation. So this is the short term. But there is in the Czech Republic a long term. In the end you cannot rely on short-term seminars, you cannot rely on somebody else's advising you what to do. In the end you have to develop an academic structure of teachers who will teach the teachers. Now in this country you have a very important basis already, because at your universities you teach the Second World War in an interdisciplinary way. In other words, there are different departments that deal with it, there is literature, language, film or whatever. But a specifics of the genocide require something else, also an interdisciplinary approach. On an academic level that will then teach the teachers, so that in the future teachers in this country as part of their ordinary academic education will receive not only knowledge but also the problematics of the event and of how to teach it. So that ultimately, in the long run, the government of this country and of other countries should try to address this very basic problem. So we are dealing with short-term and with long-term, with bilateral and multilateral issues. They have to be kept together and clearly apart. They have to be addressed, as Wesley Fisher just said, hopefully in a planned way, because if you don't do it in a planned way, it will take much longer and it will be much more difficult. And again I am not trying to tell you what to do. I am trying to tell you the experience that we are having in different countries. The lady from the Ukraine - what Jeremy Creswell told her is exactly the thing that is required - the first step is a governmental step. The first step for the Ukrainian government is to turn - if it feels like it, if it wants it, and only if it wants it. And if not, then you have to turn to bilateral arrangements with the different institutions. There is no other way. Thank you.

[???]

I arrived to the same thoughts that Yehuda Bauer expressed with one exception. He concluded by telling you that he is not trying to tell you what to do. It is wrong. He should tell you what to do because this is what we are here for. Lets look at it and see where the good parts are and where are the parts that we need to address ourselves.

Number one - I sense that the idea is more that born in here, I think the baby is born. The object is that we should take all these... I was listening very carefully and it reminded me... one person was a beautiful clarinet, the other one was an excellent trumpet, the other one was a fabulous violin, but everyone played by themselves. What we need is to find a way of creating an orchestra, play all the instruments at the same time. No one has one specific programme that fits all the countries. Dr Fisher mentioned before that we need to be very careful because we are talking about the global programme and the Czech Republic is the first one where we are trying to get it off, to implement a global programme that will successful in the Czech Republic, in Romania, Hungary, in the Ukraine and what have you. What we will need is to realise that no one will be able to do it by themselves. Not Yad Vashem, not the Holocaust Memorial Museum, not even the country that we are talking about. There are specific reasons for it and let me explain to you the reasons that I have in mind. All the countries can and should be a part of learning the generic story of the holocaust. But there are countries' specifics that do not apply to the Ukraine and apply to the Czech Republic, or that do not apply to the Czech Republic but apply to Germany. And this is the key issue. For this reason I feel that from what I heard in here I had trouble disagreeing with anybody. It is wonderful. But what we need to do is to address ourselves, to structure a co-ordinated effort that we all march in the same steps, that we all sing from the same score. This is very important. If we do not do it, I am afraid that the enthusiasm will remain the enthusiasm.

Now let me finish on a point that everybody thinks that is a bugaboo - money. Everybody feels fine, all these ideas are good, but how we are going to do it. Believe me, if you come to the world, to any organisation, whether it is Yad Vashem or your local agencies or whoever, if you come with an idea that makes sense, I guarantee you that money is not the reason for which it will fall apart. So for this reason I am appealing to all of us, including myself... We have made a lot of progress today. I am very, very happy with the proceedings, but I think we need to make sure that we don't go off in twenty directions, because if we go off in twenty directions, I assure you we will fail. Thank you very much.

Jaroslav Balvin

My name is Jaroslav Balvin and currently I work for the Section of national minorities living in the capital of Prague. I take this opportunity to wish the best for this conference on behalf of Deputy Otto Kechner who is in charge of communication with the national minorities.

It is not quite true that that teachers get their support mostly from abroad. The City of Prague has been providing grants for national minorities for several years now. A third round of grants was announced just yesterday and great opportunities present themselves precisely for seminars and publishing. I think that Holocaust issues can find their application here. Further, I would like to say that last year a volume of scholarly articles was published, entitled Praha a narodnosti (Prague and Its Nationalities). Unfortunately, the Jewish community was not represented there, perhaps because we did not initiate communications and no communication was forthcoming from the Jewish community either. Currently, the City Council of Prague is offering to the Jewish community to participate in a City Council-funded volume, entitled Praha a osobnosti narodnostnich mensin (Prague and National Minority Celebrities). One very successful project, "Neighbors Who Vanished" was also funded by the City Council of Prague.

I would add just one more thing. In the Czech Republic, there exists a movement of collaborating schools, called "R". Those are teachers who teach Romany children and they also research certain aspects of Romany Holocaust. They published such titles as, Premysl Pitter, Multikulturni vychova romskych zaku (Multicultural Education of Romany Pupils), Romove a historie (The Romany and History), which talks about children who ended up in concentration camps...

Petr Roupec

My name is Petr Roupec and I am responsible for education in all schools in the Czech Republic, with the exception of colleges, since I am deputy minister of education, youth, and physical education, and in all fields, which includes of course that one we are discussing here. All the negative things then fall, above all, on my head. I take this responsibility and I also take the responsibility for wanting and striving to rectify and improve many things.

I welcomed this conference because I don't think it will be forgotten but rather that it is an undertaking which can be effectively emulated in the sphere of education. I would be very glad if conference contributions had this impact and power.

Another important implication from this conference is about intolerance, tolerance, relationship to diversity, etc. From this point of view, too, its geographical position is significant because Prague, the Czech basin, or even this Castle happen to be historical crossroads of different events bearing on this subject. The time, too, is quite momentous, as the social change from a closed, one-sided society to an open one brings forth certain disharmony, seesawing, and this conference presents an opportunity to point out the risks of such a transformation.

We have heard some very positive things and I must state that I thank you for every kind of praise but it must be said that we are aware there are still a plenty of unfinished things and deficiencies. It looks, however, that nothing will ever be done to everyone's satisfaction.

I agree wholeheartedly with many sentences in what we heard from Dr. Leo Pavlat. What I cannot agree with entirely is the context. As if his words pay no regard to the time things were happening in, or the context they were played out in. After all, quite a bit has been done recently.

What can be done next in this area? I think the key element on which everything that can be done in education rests is the teacher. I'll borrow now from colleague Sokol who says that no school is going to be better than its teachers. We must be aware of the fact that there are some 200,000 teachers in the Republic and here we are talking about a change in thinking, and extra training not only for history teachers but teachers in general. It is not a historical topic but it is a topic about approaches to a problem. And not only about attitudes in respect of Holocaust as a topic, but attitudes in respect of intolerance, attitudes in respect of diversity. It is too bad that the Czech school is encoded with a certain degree of "intolerance" of diversity. It is a school aimed for the average, where to be different is not all that common. So much the more it needs to be changed in the heads of all of us who work in this area. It is a very complicated and long process and one of those important topics on which it can be demonstrated what will happen if certain hidden bad things are passed over in that stage when they are not yet dangerous. I declare with full responsibility that we will try to do much in respect of this topic and that we are aware it is not only a matter of money, but also of organization and will. We want to define in a very different way what needs to be done at school. We need to define objectives, not syllabi or processes. One of the objectives is to become acquainted with this phenomenon and to become acquainted with that how this knowledge - as opposed to those things one just remembers - can be emulated in practical life. The new education documents are supposed to be ready by the end of next year for the general subjects taught at elementary and secondary schools. I would be happy to meet with many of you then on that occasion to ask you whether this pledge will have been fulfilled.

Petr Lhotka

For the most part, we have talked here about Jewish Holocaust. I fully subscribe to Michal Frankl's opinion that it is necessary to have an information center to provide information for the public. Museum of Romany Culture strives to be such an institution for Romany history and Romany holocaust in the Czech lands. Teachers and education centers have already begun to request lectures and training courses about Romany history. I would even say that right now Romany history is perhaps more topical than Jewish history. It may be a heretical idea, but given the fact that the majority of Czech society is against the Romany and not against the Jews - although anti-Semitism exists here but it does not have such dimensions as the negative attitude towards the Romany - I tend to think that learning about Romany culture and history could help along the process so the Czech majority could begin to accept the Romany as equal partners. Precisely on the topic of Romany holocaust it can be shown how far hatred to a certain ethnic group can go, which in the case of liquidation of the Romany is supported by the fact that Czech authorities, Czech gendarmes, participated in it to a degree. It is very important for the future and for the hope that nothing of the sort will ever be repeated again.

Nada Stulcova

My name is Nada Stulcova, I am an elementary school teacher and I attended one of the seminars held in Washington, D.C. at Mendel Teacher Fellowship Summer Institute. First of all, I would like to make a brief remark to what Dr. Munk said about education programs to be launched early next year. Our small working group consisting of those who took such seminars began to work on methodological instructions covering one period of class instruction and it was our intent to demonstrate it here for you but there was no time for it. The Washington, D.C. seminar was very well organized. It dealt with Holocaust education in the United States in general. Over there, teachers meet each year and share their Holocaust education success stories, how students respond to Holocaust education, and the students themselves can share via e-mail various things they learned and their feelings in respect of Holocaust education. Maximum attention was paid to each seminar participant and I would like to thank the Museum staff and especially Mr. Stephen Feinberg, the coordinator of this undertaking.

[a lady from Kyiv Judaica Institute]

in Russian

Ilona Laznickova

My name is Ilona Laznickova and I am from the Museum of Romany Culture. I was impressed by the broadness and many levels of Holocaust remembrance in Holland, and by the education and the level of knowledge the public has got about the second world war period and the way it takes care of the victims of war. This can go into tremendous details and I think that for example the idea of sponsorship of monuments truly educates the children by deeds rather than words. I would like to add that we struck a specific partnership with the concentration camp at ???borg, and we have already exchanged some materials as part of our collaboration.

In Holocaust education it is especially important to educate children. It is obvious as they are our future, but then there is also the public, a multitude of people, which also need to be educated. I refer here for example to the young people who may have even completed their college education, aged around twenty-four, twenty-five. I now speak as a Museum of Romany Culture staff member. You yourself could see from those statistics how bad is the public opinion about the Romany. Neither Romany or Jewish Holocaust can be taught, unless the public knows something about the history of these two groups. It is not possible to select Holocaust only and teach only about Holocaust. Our experience shows the public knows nothing about Romany history, they don't know the roots, social psychology and the psychosis that led to Holocaust. In this respect it is not sufficient to rely on schools only, but we also have to rely on such institutions and to give room to them, and to create conditions for such institutions, and I have to be a bit partisan here, as the Museum of Romany Culture.

Jeremy Creswell

Thank you, Mr Chairman, I think I speak for all the Task Force members here in saying that we have been immensely encouraged and heartened by the nature of this discussion this afternoon. I think that one thing it shows is the scope for much more discussion and also for action and for interaction. I have also been very interested to hear the emphasis, which has also been mentioned here, on the Roma-related issues, which I think in this particular context is important.

Two points, very quickly. First of all, picking up on something Mr Lerman said, I am always worried when I hear references to global programmes. We are not into a global programme. What we are into I think is looking at universal intentions and applications according to each country's different approach, each in its own way. But there are certainly strong wish from Task Force governments and from Task Force members to spread expertise and knowledge as widely as we can.

My final point is an advertisement. There was no representative here of the Swedish government I think this afternoon. There is, however, a high-level conference taking place in Stockholm at the end of January. Why this is of relevance? This is of relevance I think because of the political signal that is intended to give. If there are high-level government representatives present there who indicate their interest in willingness to support holocaust education, research and remembrance, this may be helpful in a more general sense, in actually getting governments to do things. And I know, for example, that a high-level invitation has been to the President's Office and also to your government here. I hope that like Task Force member governments, this government will be represented at a senior level, and will want to indicate its intention to do what it can in this area. Thank you.

[???]

As a final note, I would like to say that although it is the case here in Prague that very often people from other countries come and are invited to say something about what perhaps should happen in the Czech Republic, the fact is that what really is occurring here is an absolutely phenomenal and wonderful initiative on the part of the Office of the President and, hopefully, the entire country. In fact, we are not only talking about education in the schools. We are talking as well about university education and scholarship for this purpose. We are talking about the opening of archives, which is needed. We are talking about the specifics, as Mr Lerman was poiniting out, for each country, which in the case of the Czech Republic clearly involves the question of the Roma. Under these circumstances it is just simply a really quite remarkable point in time. If you just look around and you think about the nature of this room, right the second, I find it very interesting. I wonder whether in 20 years this point of time will be remembered. I suspect it will.

Schulamid Imber

I just wanted to say that the advantage of an educator is that they always learns from others. I think that what felt here was that I learnt a lot from this discussion, and I am taking things for myself and I am taking things for the Task Force. I think we are trying to work together and develop things, although every centre has its unique approach to teaching the holocaust and sees different methods and different ways, but we meet every few months and we are developing a language also of things that we can learn one from one another. I think that this is what makes the Task Force very unique - that we are learning all the time one from each other. It is not that one was actually leading a philosophy, but we are learning from one another. I think the experience that we showed here today is that education is a dialogue. There is not one person that comes, gives a lecture and then you go home. You go home with more questions than answers. And I hope that that is what really we feel here and we have to continue our relationship. I hope I will learn Czech... I feel now that language is such an important thing for a dialogue between people. But more that that - teachers understand one another, we understand your problems. At the moment we go into the classroom we have a very universal same problems and we feel it and we know it, and I hope that this will be a continuation and only the first meeting and others to come.

Helena Dluhosova

With your permission I would like to thank all the Task Force members on behalf of Mr. President, on behalf of the Office of the President, but also on behalf of the preparatory committee and all other organizations that have made this conference possible. Although we have just completed the first day of it, I would nonetheless like to thank to all the Task Force representatives for having given us so much of their time, efforts and experience. It is hoped we are only just beginning our collaboration.

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