Keeping Holocaust Education Relevant in a Changing Landscape: Seventy Years on

Abstract

January 2015 marked the seventieth anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz–Birkenau by the Soviet Army. In 2014 alone, over one and a half million visitors crossed the same threshold, beneath the infamous words: Arbeit Macht Frei. Of these visitors, a majority were organised educational groups, particularly high school, college and university students. British visitors are second only to Polish in the number of visitors. Writing from the perspective of an educator within British HE, with experience of delivering Holocaust education at Auschwitz-Birkenau, the author considers the imperative for Holocaust education in the UK and at sites of history, at a time when the number of Holocaust living survivors is rapidly decreasing, yet visits to the sites of the Holocaust are at an all-time high.