On the significance of the Holocaust in school education. A Global Inventory of Textbooks and Curricula

How is the Holocaust presented in secondary history and social studies curricula around the world? How is it conceived and narrated in textbooks?

To answer these questions, researchers at the Georg Eckert Institute for International Textbook Research, in cooperation with UNESCO, examined and compared 272 currently approved curricula from 135 countries and 89 textbooks published in 25 countries since 2000 for historical understanding of the Holocaust. The report shows that the Holocaust is presented in broadly common patterns that convey recurring spatial (geographic) and temporal scales, protagonists, interpretive patterns (according to definitions, causes, relativizations, or trivializations), narrative techniques, and didactic methods. At the same time, the report shows how knowledge is de- and recontextualized worldwide, as all countries demonstrate narrative idiosyncrasies by emphasizing selected information and the regional significance of the event, or in the way they present the Holocaust in the interest of local populations. According to the authors, "The report not only helps us gain insight into the status of the Holocaust in educational materials in Africa, Asia, Europe, and the Americas, it also offers policymakers ideas about how education regarding the Holocaust and other mass atrocities can be (further) developed."