Known as the Auschwitz Legacy Fellowship, the initiative aims to bring American teachers to the former Nazi German concentration camp of Auschwitz so that they - upon their return - can bring lessons of Auschwitz and the Holocaust to their students back home and continue to teach them for the next five years.
Addressing the inaugural online meeting for this year’s group of 32 fellows, ABMF Chairman Ronald S. Lauder said: “Seventy-seven years and three generations have now passed since Auschwitz-Birkenau was liberated, and there are young people who know nothing about it. When people don't know anything about the Nazis and the gas chambers and the horror, that's when crimes like this can be repeated."
In his opening remarks, Piotr M.A. Cywiński, the director of the Auschwitz Museum, said: “The mission you are on is of the greatest importance. The lessons of Auschwitz you will bring to your students can and will change your students’ perception of the world they live in.”
A total of 500 high school teachers from across the United States will take part in the programme over the next five years. All of them will spend an intense week in Poland, with an itinerary including Warsaw, Kraków, and Auschwitz.
While at the Auschwitz site, they will spend time with the team of the International Center for Education about Auschwitz and the Holocaust, visit the former barracks, see the Preservation Laboratories, and obtain the tools and language necessary for teaching this material in their classrooms.
Over 1.1 million people perished at Auschwitz-Birkenau, mostly European Jews, but also Poles, Roma, Soviet POWs and people of other nationalities.
(mk/gs)