From Past to Present: Exploring Antisemitism
recipients: Nadine Ulseß-Schurda, BRG in der Au, Innsbruck, Austria
date: 2017

In a course on Holocaust studies and human rights that she teaches with Anja Schwarzenauer and Lisa Hupfauf, who attended the TOLI seminar in Innsbruck in 2016, Ms. Ulseß-Schurda’s students explore the concept of global humanities and look at human populations that have histories of exclusion and marginalization. The course provides an opportunity for students to study human catastrophes, in general, and the Holocaust, in particular. In 2017, students visited an exhibition of the Austrian Friends of Yad Vashem about Austrians who saved the lives of Jews during the time of National Socialism, and had the opportunity to hear from Holocaust survivors Lucia Heilmann and Gabriella Goldmann at their school. They also visited the Jewish cemetery in Innsbruck and met speakers from the Jewish community in Tyrol there. With support from TOLI, these students along with their three teachers traveled to relevant Holocaust memorial sites in Berlin. Following are some student responses to their trip:

“What can we do in situations where people are exposed to hatred and violence, where they are hurt, where they are neglected, where they are humiliated? We can use our voices, we can offer help, we can ask for their needs.”

 “Hearing about the long history of anti-Semitism and the hatred connected to it deeply touched me. Being a people split in different parts of the world not having a place makes people live traditions and culture even more and even stronger. This is why such a strong and beautiful and rich Jewish culture could be established around the world.”

“I will never forget this sentence from a Holocaust survivor’s diary: ‘There is no hate in my heart, there is only one question: Why?”