Commenting on the appeal made by the representation of German subject teachers to the ministers of education, the Executive Vice President of the International Auschwitz Committee, Christoph Heubner, said:

"The International Auschwitz Committee welcomes and supports the appeal by the representation of German subject teachers to the ministers of education. In view of mounting anti-Semitism and the growth of far-right networks, the experiences and warnings of the survivors of the German concentration and extermination camps are gaining greater importance. Using schools to help cultivate a modern culture of remembrance would prevent Europe from being abandoned to far-right forces, and instead uphold the vision of a Europe of freedom, diversity and tolerance."

In its newly published Paderborn Declaration, the association of scholars in German area studies has written:

“Urgent and rapid action is needed because numerous shocking events and incidents are clearly and menacingly documenting the dangers involved in suppressing and forgetting, not just since the turn of this century. Recent surveys on young people’s knowledge surrounding the Holocaust are giving cause for great concern in this context.

For this reason, in future the subject of the Holocaust needs to be approached more broadly and differently by interlinking historical-political learning processes with forms of aesthetic education. The combination of remembering and narrating, of multimedia remembrance forms and critical approaches to various literary options, offer a wealth of opportunities for promoting learning processes in language and literature, and supporting personality and personal development.

In addition to this, the ‘end of the era of the eye witnesses‘, the passing of the Holocaust survivors, makes it all the more necessary to anchor the treatment of fictional and factual testimonies, as well as new media forms of remembrance, as compulsory elements in the school curriculum, above all in the subject of German. Because school, as a social space, is the only common space that all young people attend, and as such its contributions to a modern culture of remembrance cannot be overestimated.”

Download the Paderborn Declaration (in German)