Holocaust Educational Trust

Caroline contributed to the learning resource, Recollections: Eyewitnesses Remember the Holocaust, a groundbreaking DVD-ROM, which won a prestigious BAFTA award at the Academy’s Children’s Awards held in 2007. The interactive resource received the accolade as the best in the Learning Secondary category at the awards, which celebrates the cream of children’s film and television.

This revolutionary educational tool was produced by the Holocaust Educational Trust (HET), together with the University of Southern California Shoah Foundation Institute for Visual History and Education (SFI), Film Education, and Picture Production Company (PPC).

Four years in development, Recollections integrates testimony from 18 eyewitnesses to the Holocaust, including Jewish survivors, Roma and Sinti survivors, Jehovah’s Witness survivors and political prisoners, as well as testimony from survivors of the eugenics programme. Other accounts come from rescuers and aid givers as well as a British liberator. The testimony is integrated into teaching and learning activities that not only teach students about the events of the Holocaust but reflects on the lessons that can be learnt for today.

Recollections is tailored to the secondary school Citizenship curriculum, but can also be used within History and Religious Education and English lessons. It is the first resource here in the UK to focus solely on the interactive use of visual history testimony when teaching about the Holocaust and it will enable students to engage first hand with many different eyewitnesses.

Karen Pollock, Chief Executive of the Holocaust Educational Trust, on accepting the award said:

“We were thrilled to be nominated for a BAFTA, and are now completely overwhelmed to receive such a prestigious award. It is a huge honour to be recognised by the Academy and gives us a deep sense of pride.

“At the Holocaust Educational Trust, we believe that the Holocaust must have a permanent place in our nation’s collective memory, and we are dedicated to combating prejudice and intolerance in all its forms. Recollections is an essential tool in ensuring that this important message is shared, and is already making a great impact in schools across the country.

“While we are grateful to all our partners: SFI, Film Education and PPC, we are particularly indebted to those eyewitnesses who feature in Recollections, and to all Holocaust Survivors who live with their painful experience every day, yet are willing and determined to keep telling people their story as a warning for the future. This award is for them.”

Exploring the Holocaust Teachers’ Pack

Images: © Olivia Hemingway
The image of the train carriage is taken at Auschwitz II – Birkenau, on the IWM Fellowship visit to Poland and Lithuania