Background

Under communism, official history in Romania taught that Germans were the sole perpetrators of the Holocaust, thereby ignoring the role of the Romanian government in the deportation of hundreds of thousands of Jews and tens of thousands of Roma (Gypsies) from Romania during WWII. After the fall of communism in 1989, wartime leader General Ion Antonescu was semi-rehabilitated and hailed as a hero by some Romanians, with monuments being erected across the country to honor the former dictator.

Following 15 years of setbacks, in November 2004, after the presentation of the Wiesel International Commission’s report to the Romanian President, Romania finally acknowledged in an official position the full dimensions of the Romanian Holocaust. Romanian authorities have begun efforts to educate the public about the Holocaust, it also banned pro-Nazi propaganda and the cult of war criminals. In March 2005, the newly elected government under President Traian Basescu and PM Calin Popescu Tariceanu made a firm commitment to implement the Wiesel Holocaust Commission’s recommendations on educating Romanians about the Holocaust and fighting racism in society.

Thus, the Romanian authorities have taken decisive steps towards the implementation of a unitary national curriculum concerning Holocaust education. (Although Holocaust education was introduced as a mandatory topic in pre-university curricula as of 1998, for a long time history textbooks have included little (if any), divergent, and often inaccurate information on the subject). Holocaust education has been mandatory in Romanian schools, covering 2-4 hours of material in the context of WWII. In 2004, Holocaust history also became an optional course. According to an ITF study, the three main obstacles for Holocaust education facing the Ministry of Education and Research (MEC), in Romania are: lack of information on the topic, lack of diversity of information, and too few teachers trained to teach the topic.

There are now on-going projects carried out by NGOs in cooperation with the Ministry of Education meant to distribute in schools and high-schools documentary materials designed to assist teachers in their Holocaust education activities. Teacher training sessions are being organized in Bucharest, Cluj, Craiova, Iassy, Targu Mures, Timisoara, Sibiu, Galati, Simleu, but their rate can only reach about 300 teachers per year and there are about 10,000 history teachers in Romania. Moreover, paradoxically (if not entirely absurd) with the notable exception of Cluj and Iasi the faculties of history still do not prepare the students to teach about the Holocaust. It is therefore obvious that things need speeding up.

Aims and goals

Asociatia Memoriala Hebraica Nusfalau, through the Northern Transylvania Holocaust Memorial Museum, has made it its aim to participate in this national effort. Besides the already functioning exhibitions and educational programs (including guided visits tailored for school and high school teachers and students), it is our goal to establish in the Simleu Synagogue a proper Research Center for national and international use. This is very important considering that so far our Museum is one of the few places where visitors can find information on both the deportations to the German Nazi camps and to Transnistria. Thus we intend to organize:

1. teacher training sessions in Holocaust education (first one will take place in April 2008, in cooperation with the University of Bucharest, Yad Vashem, NGOs, etc.)
2. summer camps for students from Romania and abroad, to facilitate interaction between young people with different backgrounds on the Holocaust;
3. round tables to discuss the state of the art in Holocaust research;
4. work meetings with experts involved in Holocaust education and remembrance.

Our target is made of:

1. Romanian history teachers in middle schools and high schools from the region and from the entire country, who need assistance in teaching about the Holocaust; they will be invited to participate in seminars, training sessions and research projects. Our aim is to reach especially teachers who have not previously attended sessions so that more educators are better prepared to teach about the Holocaust;
2. University and high school students who need to document themselves;
3. International visitors who need information on the Romanian Holocaust.

The Research Center is meant to provide facilities for the study of the Holocaust in Europe and in Romania to individuals as well as groups. As such we intend to create:

1. A public library, where visitors can have access to publications and also internet resources to assist them in their research;
2. A conference room where we can carry out training sessions, round tables, symposiums;
3. A hall for refreshments during events;
4. A number of rooms for people coming from outside Simleu to our conferences and training sessions, or simply individuals who undertake research in the Center for several days

Our development project takes into consideration the experience accumulated so far by those who already work in this field, so as to bring improvements, cover gaps, and create a network, and will be carried out in cooperation with the “Elie Wiesel” Institute for the Study of the Holocaust in Romania and the local school inspectorate which will ensure that all schools and high-schools in Romania are informed about the existence of the Research Center so that any teacher or student can come to it.

Also, we are counting on the aid of the local Jewish communities, with which we have had an excellent cooperation ever since the Museum was opened.