Poland’s new right-wing government wants to change the way children in that country learn about the Holocaust, casting Poles as only victims or heroes. In this new narration, the Polish people were always helping the weak, were good neighbors and cared about minorities.

Polski nowy, prawicowy rząd chce zmienić sposób nauczania polskich uczniów o Zagładzie Żydów, kreując Polaków na wyłącznie ofiary lub bohaterów. W tej nowej narracji Polacy zawsze pomagali słabszym, byli dobrymi sąsiadami i dbali o mniejszości.

A group of over a dozen educators representing the so-called Visegrad countries – a bloc of Central European countries including the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia – met for a second time to experience and discuss the power of the IWalks and IWitness activities developed by USC Shoah Foundation.

The IWalk went along one of the busiest streets in Warsaw which used to be part of the Warsaw Ghetto.

Polish educators shared the innovative ways they have used testimony in their classrooms since they completed USC Shoah Foundation’s Master Teacher program last year.

Teachers will learn about teaching with testimony and develop their own lesson plans July 2-7, 2017, in Budapest.

Three graduates of USC Shoah Foundation’s Master Teacher program in Central Europe traveled to Los Angeles this week for additional training to take their use of IWitness and testimony to the next level.

USC Shoah Foundation launched one of its newest Polish-language IWitness activities with an ITeach professional development seminar at Ian Kasprowicz High School in Łódź, Poland last weekend.

Even absent this current era of “alternative facts” and “fake news,” the new Polish law making it a crime to point out Poland’s complicity in the Holocaust would be alarming.  But that it is occurring in today’s climate of demagoguery, heightened nationalism and ethnic tension – an unholy trio that threatens to metastasize on a global scale – is a troubling development. Poland’s effort has come under attack by Israel and stewards of Holocaust memory.

Over six days, teachers from all over Poland learned how to best integrate USC Shoah Foundation's testimonies of genocide survivors into their classroom experiences.

USC Shoah Foundation welcomed staff from the educational program at Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum (ABSM) in Oświęcim, Poland, to its Los Angeles headquarters for a week-long collaboration.