Teaching the Holocaust and genocide in the digital era

MARGOT COHEN

The programme, “Remembering the Holocaust and Genocide in the Digital Age”, continued until September 13.

Smith, who is a professor of religion and is chairman of Genocide Education at Unesco and executive director of the University of Southern California Shoah Foundation, gave his talks at the Johannesburg Holocaust & Genocide Centre with Dr Boswell.

Dr Boswell who has PhD in Holocaust literature from the University of Leeds has, with Dr Smith, captivated their audiences with their knowledge, insight and innovative approach to understanding the Holocaust and genocide.

Smith has also recently become a patron of the South African Holocaust and Genocide Foundation.

Director of the JH&GC, Tali Nates, was involved in several of the workshops and took part in one on Monday, focusing on post-memory.

The Shoah Foundation, founded by Steven Spielberg, contains the largest archive of oral history – some 54 000 survivors’ testimonies – including testimonies from Nazi-era survivors and the Rwandan and Armenian genocides. 

The information is available online to scholars. It’s a new dimension which acknowledges that survivors are few – and getting fewer – and that their stories must be preserved.

Added Smith: “This database is a treasure trove of historical memory for now and the future.”

One such Holocaust survivor, Pinchas Gutter from Poland, who has lived in Cape Town for more than 30 years, answers questions and engages with audiences through an interactive hologram that can be projected in 3D, answering questions about his experiences during the Holocaust and his life before and after.

Questions about Gutter’s gruelling experiences as a young boy during the Second World War are directly answered in a very hands-on approach.

Adds Boswell: “It’s a new way of training scholars and volunteers who want to fire questions at survivors.

“Each story is unique and each survivor responds in his or her own way, showing resilience, hope, tenacity.” There are also many survivors living in Eastern Europe, living in dire poverty, whose losses were never addressed.

“We have to learn from each testimony. Anti-Semitism is lethal and often leads to genocide – as history has shown,” says Smith. “The Holocaust targeted Jews, but hatred was made by Western civilisation.

“We are all responsible and memories must be preserved to ensure that mass murder does not recur.”

* For more information contact Shirley@jhbholocaust.co.za or telephone (011) 640-3100.