Holocaust Education in South Africa

The Cape Town Holocaust Centre did this by using photos of the families of Cape Town Jews who were murdered to represent the victims, and identification pictures from one small town, Bedzin, photographed before deportation by the Germans, to portray all those deported. Faces, not statistics. The displays focus on the development of the Holocaust, rather than on the detail. It serves as an impactful introduction to a largely uninformed audience for whom the number of six million does not even resonate.

The centre's mission would be to ensure that the memory of what had happened would be preserved and would serve as a lesson in the importance of tolerance for the new generation of South Africans who were fortunate to be growing up in a country with a non discriminatory constitution. In this way, the memory of the lives and tragic deaths of their fellow Jews would become a legacy for the future.

The success of the centre exceeded all expectations as school after school booked for the four-hour education programme and returned, bringing more children, and the children returned, bringing parents, and the parents returned, bringing church groups, trade unions, employees or fellow workers. Each programme spawned further requests for programmes. Schools came with Afrikaans pupils, German pupils, Moslem pupils, Black pupils, Jewish pupils. They came with their ignorance and their prejudices, and they left with knowledge and challenged attitudes. The success of the Cape Town Holocaust Centre was summed up by a teacher who wrote that:

The programme is introduced with a video specifically made for the Holocaust centre in English, Afrikaans and Xhosa that gives a historical overview of the period from 1933 - 1945. Trained volunteers, retired teachers and survivors act as education assistants to guide the groups through the exhibition. The panels discretely draw attention to the similarities between the Nazi Germany between 1933 and 1939 and the apartheid system. No Jews or Whites only signs on park benches, documents stamped with a J, and pass books for Non Europeans, pseudo scientific racial categorisation of Jews and Blacks, tiered sleeping accommodation in concentration camps and mine hostels. As the visitors pass through the panels outlining the development of the Final Solution, the differences between the Holocaust and the apartheid system also become clear. After 1939 there were no similarities between apartheid and the Holocaust, there was never genocide in South Africa. The visitors also realise what evils can be caused by racism, discrimination and prejudice.

The feelings evoked from the learners can be seen in the remarks written in the education programme evaluations, some of which are quoted below. From a student "I hope one day to come back to teach my own children about the Holocaust. When I started learning about Hitler I used to like him and everywhere I went I used to draw the swastika sign. Some of my friends idealised him, but when we saw what happened today we changed our minds."

Jeshajahu Weinberg the founding director of the Washington Holocaust Museum wrote that

Like the Washington Holocaust Museum the Cape Town Holocaust Centre shares an educational responsibility to help visitors to apply the metaphoric meaning embedded in Holocaust history to their contemporary experience as individuals and as a member of society. They do this, as shown in this learner's comment,"Having just come through Apartheid, I thank G-d that we, as a South African people, did not have to endure such horrors to achieve our freedom. My heartfelt gratitude to all who made it possible for South Africans to be reminded that there is no room for prejudice in this world".

Apartheid may be over in South Africa but racism is still alive and well both socially and in the work place. It takes a long time to eradicate deep seated and long held prejudices which are usually learnt as a child in the home. Despite legislation, there are still many inequities. Attitudes of tolerance must be taught and the Centre, through its well chosen documentation, successfully demonstrates the moral lessons from the Holocaust in a way that is applicable to a multi-ethnic audience and visitors who have gone through the display will have no doubt of the Holocaust's historicity and significance.

The effect on the visitor is the result of the impact of the visual and auditory stimuli provided by the display combined with the emotional impact of the debriefing workshop held at the conclusion of the programme. This brings the visit to the Holocaust Centre out of the arena of a passive walk through a museum displaying past history, that is not always relevant to today's younger viewer, into a visit that challenges them to evaluate concepts and attitudes that have a day to day relevance. No longer passive viewers but active participants.

Debriefing workshops are held at the completion of the visit. These form the focal point of the experience. Here they are made aware of how the issues raised by the Holocaust impacts on their own lives and what problems can arise from issues of diversity. The workshop encourage the learners to reflect on how they would have responded under similar circumstances, or how they respond when faced with examples of racism, prejudice and discrimination in their own lives." I learnt a lot about myself even though I thought I was going to learn about other people" a learner wrote. They are shown that racism, prejudice and discrimination know no boundaries. It can begin as name calling or teasing but can end up in genocide. The pupils are taught not to judge by how one looks or what religion one practices, but to promote diversity; not to make assumptions but find out about differences. They are given the opportunity to confront issues of racism, prejudice and discrimination, how to recognise incidents of these in their own lives and what they can do to intervene. That they apply these lessons to themselves is obvious from their evaluation forms such as this one:

"From my visit to the Holocaust Centre, I have learnt that I have been very disrespectful towards my African classmates and my behaviour has been unacceptable. My responsibility to Society is to stop racism and teach that all faiths should be respected."

The response to the visits from both school teachers and learners have been enthusiastic:

"In many ways" wrote one teacher," our learners still experience racialistic if not racist pressures in the communities in which they grow up. Their common reaction, 'My parents should see this' says it all, and quite a number of them have returned with their parents. For some of these learners what they experience at the Holocaust Centre is a vindication of something they instinctively feel, for others it is an eye opener, but not one of them walks away at the end of the day untouched. There is no better way to teach learners about the dangers of generalisation, stereotyping and discrimination than through a visit to the Holocaust Centre."

In addition the centre has run educational programmes for diverse adult groups representing church members, social workers, lawyers, ecologists, military students, employers from the post office, banks and businesses. Visits have been arranged for tertiary institutions, universities and colleges and interschool seminars are organised during school holidays for teachers and youth to provide an opportunity for pupils of diverse cultural and religious backgrounds to interact and explore together the issues of prejudice, racism, discrimination and the need to respect diversity.

"I always thought that Apartheid happened a long time ago and I have nothing to do with what happened in that time, but I do carry a grudge against other races and I should not. This museum opened my eyes to see what can happen when prejudice influences people, I will not let this happen to me now".

A teacher wrote "I learnt that my role in society has been one of a bystander. I see wrong and do nothing." Another wrote" I always knew that I had certain responsibilities in society but the visit to the Centre reminded me about how important it is to have a positive influence in my community and on the lives of others - to take a stand and to make a positive difference in my own country. I learnt to value people's lives, ideas and feelings."

Wrote a university student: "It totally changed my attitude of bitterness and revenge towards the cruel white South African. It also became clear to me why Mandela decided to reconcile and I will do the same from today. I realise that revenge only makes things worse."

Among the comments from the police personnel were these: "I learnt the importance of treating people as equals, attempting to stop corruption in the police service and trying to stop racist attitudes and behaviour amongst colleagues..... I will try not to be so judgemental towards ethnic minorities, eg Nigerian immigrants, and treat them from their viewpoint… It certainly has changed my way of looking at and behaving towards others...This was a terrific experience which I would recommend for everyone in this country and then maybe we will learn to live in peace with each other."

Arising from these workshops was a request to run one for a group of rival gangsters - carefully guarded and unarmed. There has been no subsequent feedback but the colourful group participated actively and seemed to benefit and it is hoped that for a short time at least, in one gangster-ridden area, peace reigned in the streets.

The reason why the results from the workshops run for police and correctional services personnel have been so successful was that, having learnt about Holocaust history in the morning, the participant then participates in an afternoon workshop. The centre creates a "safe place" in which they are able to share or discuss almost anything and everything that they may have perpetrated themselves or witnessed or experienced. Nothing that they would have experienced would have been as bad as what they had learnt about that morning.

From trying to come to terms with the pain of the victims to examining the pain and attempts at reconciliation of the children of the perpetrators, the Cape Town Holocaust Centre has come full circle in the path to reconciliation. In 2003 it created a travelling exhibition entitled "Seeking Refuge: German Jewish immigration to the Cape in the 1930s, including aspects of Germany confronting its past" with the sponsorship among others, of the Federal Government of Germany. The exhibition was accompanied by a series of films and lectures on the German Jewish refugees as well as on Germany's examination of its Nazi past both in literature and in history by scholars, many from Germany.

In Cape Town they are listening to the survivors. Memory and mourning has become an instrument to strengthen democracy and teach the lessons of tolerance and reconciliation. This has been welcomed in a land in which true democracy is not yet ten years old and the memory of life under a racist apartheid government is still fresh.