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Carrier / Chiriac with Niran / Sinai 2021 Explaining the Holocaust and Genocide in Contemporary Curricula, Textbooks and in Pupils’ Writings in Europe Country Studies Peter Carrier / Christine Chiriac with Ben Niran and Stavit Sinai Explaining the Holocaust and Genocide in Contemporary Curricula, Textbooks and in Pupils’ Writings in Europe Country Studies urn:nbn:de:0220- 2021-0037 This publication was published under the creative commons licence: Attribution 3.0 Germany (CC BY 3.0) https://creativecommons.org/licenses/ by/3.0/. Cite as: Peter Carrier and Christine Chiriac with Ben Niran and Stavit Sinai. Explaining the Holocaust and Genocide in Contemporary Curricula, Textbooks and in Pupils’ Writings in Europe: Country Studies. (2021). urn:nbn:de:0220- 2021-0037. Explaining the Holocaust and Genocide in Contemporary Curricula, Textbooks and in Pupils’ Writings in Europe COUNTRY STUDIES The National Dimensions of Explanations of the Holocaust and Genocides in European Educational Media Peter Carrier / Christine Chiriac with Ben Niran and Stavit Sinai Contents Introduction ................................................................................................................................ 3 ALBANIA .................................................................................................................................. 4 AUSTRIA ................................................................................................................................. 10 BELARUS ................................................................................................................................ 19 BELGIUM ................................................................................................................................ 27 BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA ............................................................................................ 37 CROATIA ................................................................................................................................ 45 CYPRUS .................................................................................................................................. 53 CZECH REPUBLIC ................................................................................................................ 61 ESTONIA ................................................................................................................................. 69 FINLAND ................................................................................................................................ 78 FRANCE .................................................................................................................................. 86 GERMANY .............................................................................................................................. 95 HUNGARY ............................................................................................................................ 105 LITHUANIA .......................................................................................................................... 114 MONTENEGRO .................................................................................................................... 122 THE REPUBLIC OF NORTH MACEDONIA ..................................................................... 130 POLAND ................................................................................................................................ 137 PORTUGAL ........................................................................................................................... 146 ROMANIA ............................................................................................................................. 154 SLOVAKIA ........................................................................................................................... 162 TURKEY ................................................................................................................................ 173 UKRAINE .............................................................................................................................. 182 Appendix – List of curricula, textbooks and pupils’ essays ................................................... 192 Introduction These country studies summarise explanations of the Holocaust and other acts of extreme violence found in curricula, textbooks and pupils’ writings in 2016 and 2017 in twenty-two countries in Europe and in Turkey. The countries are ordered alphabetically. Maps show the locations of schools in which the materials were used, which are representative not of national historical understandings, but of materials used in specific places at a specific time. The section for each country is divided into three parts encompassing three distinct levels of the curriculum: the ‘prescribed’ or ‘intended’ curricular standards issued by education ministries, the ‘programmatic’ curriculum presented in two textbooks used in state schools and the received or ‘enacted’ curriculum as recorded in the writings of young people. Explanations of the Holocaust and other acts of extreme violence found in curricula, textbooks and essays were subject to analytical criteria defined in terms of the conceptualisations of paratexts, of events and their comparisons, of the names and types of protagonists involved, of effects and aftereffects of the events mentioned, of the timescale and spatial scale ascribed to events (including their beginning, end and turning points), of the points of view of implied readers (of textbooks) and authors (of essays) and of the causes of the Holocaust and of other instances of extreme violence. The project team consisted of Peter Carrier, project leader and principal investigator, Christine Chiriac, project coordinator, and Ben Niran and Stavit Sinai. Peter Carrier designed the methodology for the analyses of curricula, textbooks and pupils’ essays and carried out most of the analysis of these essays. He was supported by Ben Niran who analysed the essays from Hungary and Slovakia and by Stavit Sinai for Belgium, Finland, Portugal and Romania. Christine Chiriac conducted most of the curricula and textbook analyses assisted by Ben Niran (studies for Hungary and Slovakia) and Stavit Sinai (studies for Croatia and Estonia). Meyrick Payne created the maps. These studies were made possible thanks to generous funding from the European Commission, with additional support from the National Fund of the Republic of Austria for Victims of National Socialism, the Future Fund of the Republic of Austria, the Austrian Federal Ministry of Education and Women’s Affairs and the Georg Eckert Institute for International Textbook Research. Special thanks are due to Marret Bischewski (Georg Eckert Institute, Germany), Önder Cetin (Georg Eckert Institute, Germany), Eleni Christodoulou (Georg Eckert Institute, Germany), Patrycja Czerwińska (Georg Eckert Institute, Germany), Karsten Eckert (Georg Eckert Institute, Germany), Sophie Friedl (University of Munich, Germany), Petra Hajdu (Budapest, Hungary), Jakob Kirchheimer (Georg Eckert Institute, Germany), Claudia Lichnofsky (Humboldt University of Berlin, Germany), Johannes Scharr (University of Heidelberg, Germany), Mariya Yanchevska (University of Hanover Library, Germany) and Anna Zadora (University of Strasbourg, France) for assisting us with research when seeking schools, educational materials or when translating materials; and Peter Heldt (Braunschweig), Andrew Lawrence (Hampton School, United Kingdom) and the pupils of the Ricarda Huch Grammar School (Braunschweig, Germany) for their patient support when conducting pilot studies. ALBANIA Curricula The Competency-based Curriculum from 2016 is geared towards thirteen- to fourteen-year- old pupils and addresses the Holocaust in a section called ‘The Era of the Major Shocks (1914–1945)’, which deals with both world wars in the context of ‘totalitarianism’. The section dedicated to the Second World War has a military focus and enumerates different aspects of the war, including the causes, character, progression and outcomes of the conflict as well as the Holocaust (14). The section also mentions ‘consequences of the Holocaust’ (15) alongside economic, social and psychological consequences of the war in general. The curriculum specifically refers to indigenous implications including ‘the attitude of Albanians towards Jews in the Second World War’ (16). Finally, ‘Methodological Guidelines’ (22) address ‘the Holocaust, genocides and other crimes against humanity, ethnic cleansing, mass violations of human rights and fundamental values’ in the context of ‘teaching and remembrance’. The Holocaust, genocides and other atrocities are referred to collectively as ‘devastating events’ and as ‘the darkest moment of history in Europe … and the world’ (28). The History Programme, geared towards fifteen- to sixteen-year-olds in year ten, follows a similar structure and teaching content. In the section ‘The Era of the Major Shocks (1914–1945)’, it also addresses developments in Germany by specifying topics comprising ‘Hitler’s seizure of power’, ‘the features of foreign and domestic policy of Nazism’ and ‘Hitler’s antisemitism, which resulted in the Holocaust’ (44). These curricula prescribe a military and political approach to the Holocaust while briefly mentioning remembrance and other genocides. Educational goals are defined in terms of ‘understanding’ the nature of conflicts and the impact of ‘national,