With seminars last summer in Greece, Romania and Bulgaria, TOLI is fast becoming a major resource in Europe for Holocaust education.  Along with Austria, which will host a second seminar, TOLI programs will expand in 2018 to Portugal, Poland and Hungary.

“Europe is a priority for our work and we are gratified by the partnerships we have developed in several countries,” said Mark Berez, President of the Olga Lengyel Institute. “With the rise of extremism and hate crimes, our programs, focusing on social justice and human rights, have become timely and well received by the teaching community”, he added.

The newest addition to TOLI professional development programs took place last July in Athens, where 35 secondary school and university teachers convened for four days for a teaching seminar on the Holocaust in Greece and its lessons for today. The seminar was developed in partnership with the Jewish Museum of Greece and the Ministry of Education. Speaking at the seminar, together with experts from the US Holocaust Memorial and Museum and local academic scholars, were George Kalantzis, Secretary General of Religious Affairs of Greece and the US Ambassador to Greece, Geoffrey Pyatt.

Plans for 2018 include a seminar in Warsaw, Poland, another program in Lisbon in cooperation with the MemoShoah Council, and a US-Austrian collaborative program, bringing together teachers from both countries. Also, TOLI will continue its summer programs in Romania in cooperation with the Elie Wiesel National Institute for the Study of the Holocaust in Romania, in Bulgaria, at the American University of Bulgaria, and again in Athens.

“We believe that, together with our partners in Europe, we can make a difference by drawing upon the lessons of the Holocaust to address contemporary issues, “ says Oana Nestian Sandu, International Program Director for TOLI. “The need and desire are there.  We are only limited by the resources we can bring to accommodate the growing number of teachers who seek to participate in our educational programs”.