Belarusian Jewish scholars lament lack of Holocaust education :: Charter'97 :: News

The Minsk Jewish Community House hosted a meeting of the international "round table" on 22 October, which discussed educational questions of Holocaust history, commemoration of Jewish victims of the Nazis and commemoration of righteous Gentiles. The event was organized by the union of Belarusian Jewish organizations and communities and was dedicated to the 60th anniversary of the massacre in the Minsk ghetto.

According to the chairman of the Holocaust national fund, Doctor of History Ina Herasimava, many Jews living in Belarus are still awkward about speaking of their nationality openly and refuse to take part in events dedicated to the history of Holocaust. "Thus, among the authors of the 226 works entered in the national competition `Holocaust. History and the present day`, only three came from the country`s Jewish community," Herasimava noted.

She said that, despite the efforts of many years by the Jewish public and due to lack of support from government agencies, above all the Ministries of Education and Culture, studying the Holocaust has not been included in the curriculum of secondary schools.

Having addressed the statistics of Holocaust victims, Doctor of History Emanuil Iofe said that according to his estimations 805,000 Jews died in Belarus during World War II, including 90,000 people who had been deported from Austria, Germany, the Netherlands, Hungary, Poland, Czechoslovakia and France.

Along with this, the scientist expressed his surprise that the article "Holocaust" in the 16th volume of the Belarusian Encyclopaedia does not say anything about the annihilation of Jews in Belarus in 1941-44. "And this official edition illustrates the state`s stance," the scholar said.

He also said the government should acknowledge the Belarusian nation`s guilt of complicity in the Jewish people`s tragedy, as the governments of Lithuania, Poland and Ukraine have already done.

(Passage omitted: a participant says Belarus lost scientific and economic potential because of the Holocaust)

The vice-president of the union of Belarusian Jewish organizations and communities, Yakaw Basin, said the problem of education in the history of the Holocaust is to do with the upbringing of children and teenagers in families.

(Passage omitted: Basin says a memorial to Jewish victims of the Nazi genocide should be built in Belarus)

Basin thinks there is no problem of state anti-Semitism because "there is no state programme aimed at discrimination against Jews in Belarus".

However, the chairman of the US-registered World Association of Belarusian Jews, Yakaw Hutman, thinks there are manifestations of state anti-Semitism in Belarus. "Namely that the state, abetted by the silence of the Belarusian Jewish community leaders, has refused to call to account the publishers and distributors of anti-Semitic materials and those who are destroying Jewish shrines and cemeteries in this country," Hutman said.

(Passage omitted: a German journalist called a programme to commemorate the Jews; the discussion on the Holocaust is to continue on 26 October in Minsk)