CZECHS SUPPORT TEACHING ABOUT HOLOCAUST

Prague Daily Monitor, Czech Republic
April 26 2006

Prague, April 25 (CTK) – The Czech Education Ministry supports
teaching about the Holocaust, although schools in the Czech Republic
are autonomous and it is impossible to dictate to them how to teach
about genocide, Education Minister Petra Buzkova said at a discussion
about the issue today.

However, the Ministry finances the educational seminars “How to teach
about the Holocaust,” attended by roughly 1700 teachers since 2001,
Buzkova said.

The Ministry has also sponsored some publications and brochures dealing
with the problem of genocide of Jews and Romanies during World War II,
Buzkova said.

Representatives of roughly 30 countries of the Council of Europe and
the European Cultural Convention today discussed the education of
the young generation about Holocaust problems in Prague.

Teaching about the Holocaust faces problems in a number of countries,
including poor proficiency of teachers, lack of teaching aids and
political problems, Gunnar Mandt from the Steering Committee for
Education of the Council of Europe told journalists.

There is the political obstacle that, in some countries, teaching
about genocide is not part of the curricula, Mandt said.

Individual schools and teachers must include it in the teaching process
themselves, Mandt said, adding that the problem was also on the side
of the teachers who do not have enough knowledge about how to teach
about the Holocaust.

Due to this, the Council of Europe stages seminars both for the
teachers and instructors who prepare the former, Mandt said.

In many places, there is also the problem with teaching aids.

Former President Vaclav Havel told the seminar that it was not enough
to evoke the memories of the Holocaust, as it was also necessary to
keep thinking of it.

“Society is losing its external ethical order understood by everyone.

As it is, the Holocausts that afflicted Armenians and Jews and the
Gulag, these tremendous disasters are in a way an understandable
product of the modern ambiguous civilisation,” Havel said.

Responsibility for genocide is a joint problem of all people, not
only of certain nations, Havel said.

Signs of intolerance and latent fascism are more dangerous than
sympathisers of neo-Nazi movements, Havel said.

“This can be seen by someone distinguishing better concentration camps
from the worse, which indicates that some concentration camps were
not of this type. One can also see it in the reserved relationship to
minorities or people with a different sexual orientation,” Havel said.