The project "Facing Historical and Holocaust Distortion Now" (F2HDN), led by the international relations department of the Shoah Memorial, has received financial support from the European Union as part of the program "Citizens, Equality, Rights and Values" (CERV) within its component "Memory".
Eleven training courses were organized between March 2024 and February 2025 by the Shoah Memorial and its European partners, for teachers and students from 17 European countries (Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Estonia, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Lithuania, Latvia, Portugal, Romania, Serbia, Slovenia, Spain).
The project, lasting one year, is structured around two distinct devices. The first, "The Shoah as a starting point," is a series of training courses organized at the European level for history teachers and other educational professionals. Designed with the idea that the Shoah can serve as a basis for an inclusive dialogue between countries facing memorial and cross-border conflicts, and where the Shoah generally has little place in school curricula, these courses bring together history teachers, representatives of national authorities and members of civil society from two or three different countries. Through conferences and workshops, participants gain a deep understanding of the history of the Holocaust, enabling them to study and express themselves on the more contemporary challenges their states face. The aim of these seminars is to create a transnational dialogue on common history, while providing an academic, historical and scientific foundation for participants.
The second program, "Interrogating the Never Again" (INA), is aimed at European students. The program can be designed with a partner university, but it can also include two universities from bordering countries. This training includes a first part dedicated to the study of the Shoah and a second part on the study of genocides and mass atrocities in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. The comparative approach is privileged here because it allows to make bridges between past and present and gives the historical and legal bases necessary for the understanding of mass crimes. Lectures are accompanied by workshops on cross-cutting issues related to citizenship education. These workshops are privileged spaces to open discussion with students and allow them to appropriate the knowledge acquired.
Funded by the European Union. The views and opinions expressed are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Executive Agency for Education and Culture (EACEA). Neither the EU nor the granting authority can be held responsible for this.
