Empowering learning about the Holocaust
mperial War Museums’ new Holocaust Galleries, which are to open on October 20, have been developed for a very specific purpose: to improve public understanding of one of the most horrific events in modern global history. This is a critical mission. In the extremes, lack of knowledge is recognised as significantly contributing to rising antisemitism levels, prejudice which sadly is still present in today’s society.
However, the desire to improve understanding is clearly there. Ahead of opening these galleries, IWM conducted a survey with YouGov to find out just how much people knew about the Second World War and the Holocaust. One of the most interesting results was that 93 per cent of respondents believe that this period is still relevant to learn about today. This is reflected by the English national curriculum, as the Holocaust is the only historical event that is compulsory for key stage pupils three to study.
From our conversations with teachers, we recognise that it can be incredibly challenging to both teach and learn about the Holocaust. IWM has been providing Holocaust learning sessions
for students for many years, but with the development of these galleries, we felt it was the right time to update our Holocaust offer for schools. One major reason for the galleries’ development was that in the 20 years since IWM’s previous exhibition opened, there has been a vast amount of new research into the Holocaust, driven in part by access to new archives since the end of the Cold War. The discovery of new information about this history, together with IWM having developed our Holocaust-related collections, means there is much more for our audiences to learn.
IWM focuses on telling the personal stories of eyewitnesses to conflict, to help improve understanding of how war impacts lives around the globe. For this learning programme, we looked to collaborate with creative partners from the wider cultural sector in order to tell these extraordinary stories from a multitude of perspectives. Creative digital production studio Friday Sundae and Olivier award winning writer/dramaturg Stef Smith do just that; they bring their skills as experts in audience communication and IWM benefits from their creativity to help us tell these stories in unique and engaging ways.
Through this collaboration we decided to empower students to ask the difficult questions surrounding the Holocaust such as: Why do we still study the Holocaust? Why and how did it happen? Over the course of the learning programme, students would then be given the tools to develop their own answers to these questions. In this way, we centre on the investigation of choice and consequence. Key to our intention is to create a safe environment in which to challenge existing preconceptions and misconceptions, and to develop critical thinking skills about the Holocaust, its impact at the time and its legacy and significance today.
Bearing in mind this approach, we also focus on fostering trust and collaboration between students. Using Friday Sundae’s expertise in education, game design and innovative digital technology, the digital element of the programme has been designed to develop teamwork and leadership skills. It will give students agency by asking them to make choices about what they wish to engage with in the Holocaust Galleries and provide them with time and prompts to help them critically think, reflect and discuss the events and stories that they will be exploring in the galleries together.
Students will use a digital device to support them around the new Holocaust Galleries and have the opportunity to explore collection items in augmented reality during their visit.
Learning has embraced the digital world, making use of the innovative technologies now available to us. In our programme, IWM takes a hybrid approach, combining state of the art technology with time with IWM trained facilitators. Museums should offer a very different learning environment to a classroom, and through this learning programme, we want to provide students with the opportunity to spend time in modern, light and innovative Holocaust Galleries. We hope this will shift the perceptions on what museums are like and inspire students of all ages to explore the complexity of the Holocaust and its legacy in our world today.
We also want students to be sensitised to injustice, develop consciousness of being a global citizen and want to contribute to social change. Another important finding in IWM’s recent survey with YouGov, was that 78 per cent of respondents think genocide is currently happening in today’s world. This makes our collective responsibility to learn about historic examples of genocide, such as the Holocaust, more important than ever. Through this learning programme, and the development of our new galleries, IWM hopes to empower students, as the decision makers of the future, to do just that.