International organizations in the globalization of Holocaust education

• In Event: As the witnesses fall silent: Holocaust education for the new Millennium (Panel and Book Launch)

Abstract

This paper examines the role of international organizations in spreading Holocaust education both historically and today. The dissemination of Holocaust education and remembrance across the globe owes much to the actions taken by intergovernmental organizations, starting with the United Nations, to ensure that this historical event becomes a key global reference. Commemoration is not the only objective and, in a global context, remembering the Holocaust is supposed to meet a global educational aim: through encounters with the darkest pages of history, to help the people of the world to uphold universal values of peace and mutual respect, and thus contribute to preventing the resurgence of events of a similar nature. Placed under the triple auspices of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the Convention for the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, the United Nations designated 27 January as an International Day of Commemoration and “urges Member States to develop programmes that will inculcate future generations with the lessons of the Holocaust in order to help to prevent future acts of genocide”.

Author

• Karel Fracapane, UNESCO