Wesson travels to Holocaust Museum for teaching workshop

Darby Wesson’s Homewood Middle School students will learn about the Holocaust in a new way this year after Wesson’s experience this summer at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.

Wesson was one of more than 200 participants who attended the 19th annual Arthur and Rochelle Belfer National Conference for Educators, a three-day workshop for teachers hosted by the Museum in mid-July.

The conference is a part of the museum’s ongoing effort to equip educators throughout the country with the knowledge and skills to effectively bring Holocaust education in their classrooms.

 “In the face of rising antisemitism and Holocaust denial, educating students about this history is becoming increasingly urgent,” said Fredlake, director of the museum’s teacher education and special programs. “As the global leader in Holocaust education, the museum works to ensure teachers have the training and resources they need to introduce their students to this important and complex history — and show them how its lessons remain relevant to all citizens today.”

Every year, the museum trains hundreds of teachers through training programs held in Washington and around the country. It provides these teachers with advanced tools and teaching materials for students of history, English, social studies, language arts, library science, journalism and more.

At the conference, the participants teamed up with museum educators and scholars in sharing rationales, strategies and approaches for teaching about the Holocaust, Nazi propaganda and antisemitism by using various media, such as literature, survivor testimony and diaries that the museum provides. They toured the museum’s permanent exhibition, as well as the special exhibitions Some Were Neighbors: Collaboration & Complicity in the Holocaust; Remember the Children: Daniel’s Story; and From Memory to Action: Meeting the Challenge of Genocide. They heard from Holocaust survivor and museum volunteer Henry Greenbaum, who survived the Auschwitz Buna-Monowitz subcamp and a death march to Dachau before being liberated by U.S. soldiers in April 1945.

Once the participants completed the program, they received a set of educational materials and a voucher worth $100 to buy Holocaust-related materials in the Museum shop.