Holocaust, Civil Rights, and Digital Literacy in the Global Classroom

What is Centropa? Centropa, a Jewish historical institute based in Vienna, interviewed 1,200 elderly Jews living in 15 European countries. We didn’t use video or focus on the Holocaust, but asked our respondents to tell us their entire life stories spanning the 20th c. as they showed us their old family photographs.

Centropa offers teachers a database of thousands of annotated photos, hundreds of interviews, and scores of award-winning, short multimedia films (none longer than 30 minutes)—ideal for creating virtual or in-class projects that teach digital literacy, promote critical thinking, increase global awareness, all found at http://www.centropa.org, and all free of charge. Each summer we bring the most innovative teachers to the great cities of Central Europe to travel with 80 teachers from 15 countries—in 2021 we will be in Vienna.

Teachers use Centropa resources to teach history, Holocaust, social studies, ELA, art, foreign language,
filmmaking, photography, technology, and civics.

What makes Centropa different? Their approach to 20th century history and Holocaust education:

• Teachers should teach how Jews lived, not only how they died—and Centropa gives you the resources to do so;
• Students relate to our stories because they get to know survivors from their childhood through old age, and connect to their stories of growing up, overcoming hardship, and resilience;
• Their pedagogy: no boxed curriculum - you decide how Centropa’s resources work for you.
• Their emphasis on teachers: veteran Centropa teachers share their classroom-tested lessons;
• Cross-competency projects: their Milton Wolf Prize empowers students to learn how to be active citizens, find a passion project, and educate people how to get involved;
• Their international teachers network: since 2007 Centropa has brought over 600 teachers together and they have been forming partnerships with each other while connecting their students, too.

Questions? Contact Lauren Granite, Centropa’s US Education Director, at granite@centropa.org, or Wendy Warren, Holocaust Museum Houston Director of Education, at wwarren@hmh.org.