DISCOURSES AND DEPICTIONS OF HOLOCAUST EDUCATION IN LITHUANIAN HISTORY TEXTBOOKS (1992-2012)

Abstract

The topic of the Holocaust is a relatively new issue in Lithuanian historical education – only with the regained independence from the Soviet Union in 1990 did Lithuanians have a chance include the Holocaust theme into the main school curriculum. Of course, its development through the first two decades have not been steady and even – in the beginning of the creation of the new educational system the Holocaust did not receive so much attention as in later years with the relation to integration with the European Union (2004) and development of historical studies on the Holocaust within the Lithuanian academic community. This article aims to analyse the representation of the Holocaust in Lithuanian educational system during the first two decades after Lithuania regained its independence. So the main basis of empirical data will be all history textbooks for Lithuanian school education (from the 5th grade to the last, 12th grade) published in the period of 1992-2012, and educational programmes presented by the State`s Ministry of Education and Science. In order to objectively evaluate the Lithuanian situation regarding Holocaust education the article will discuss and compare the main trends of Holocaust education development in neighbouring countries, which also suffered from Holocaust and could not freely speak about the issue during the Communist regime.