The Holocaust is present in all of our lives. Preschoolers frightened by the siren, children drawing their family trees and travelling to Poland, soldiers who learn about it in educational seminars, survivors who are still with us, politicians who address it in a variety of contexts, the media -- for everyone mentioned the Holocaust is an active part of the collective memory, which will accompany us for a long time to come.
Exposing small children to Holocaust-related content, to the emotions and symbols to which it pertains, is a given fact and is probably unavoidable. Therefore the essential question is not when and at what age it is right to start teaching this subject, rather what the goals are and how it should be done. The Holocaust's dramatic effects are so significant that from an educational perspective they are potentially destructive: It is easy to convey it in the form of fear and victimization, suspicion and hatred, isolation and aggression.
On the flip side, the Holocaust has great educational potential to build and cultivate values: People held on to their beliefs and identities, helped one another, risked their own lives to save others, never lost hope despite everything.
The educational challenge is explaining to the children that we, the adults, also cannot truly comprehend what happened. How do we do this without bruising the child's spirit? How can we use this subject to empower the children instead of depressing and exasperating them-
The way to do it is to speak to them in accordance with their emotional and mental developmental stage. They can learn about children similar to them, but who had to face dramatic hardships. This is how it has been done for 20 years already at "Yad Layeled" at the Ghetto Fighters' House Museum on Kibbutz Lohamei Hagetaot. The language employed is geared towards children: There is an interactive exhibit to stimulate the senses; the personal story from children's point of view is at the center of the experience; motifs of resourcefulness, coping and rescue are highlighted; children who without preparation were forced to assume adult roles -- becoming responsible for their brothers and sisters or for providing a living for their family. They are introduced to children who were alone but discovered within themselves the strength to persevere. There is a circular room, in the middle of which is a colorful and well-lit exhibit dedicated to the teacher Janusz Korczak -- an island of light in a sea of darkness. Not all of the adults shunned their duties.
The children's meeting with the world of the child at the time of the Holocaust allows this amorphous and threatening story, to which they are exposed regardless, to be conveyed to them in a gentler fashion, on their level, which they can grasp, devoid of the horrors of death and murder. The visiting children listen to the stories of children like them, but from a different place and time. An empathetic attentiveness is created, attentiveness with the power to instill in them and strengthen their sensitivity toward their fellow human beings -- that which inherently exists in every child. The Holocaust was made possible because this was lost.
We cannot escape having to contend with the harsh truths of the Holocaust. We can choose what to learn from it at every age. Our children are entitled to grow up with faith in mankind and in a safe future -- despite the Holocaust. Because of it.
Dr. Anat Livne is the director of the Ghetto Fighters' House.
