Participants in TOLI’s 2021 Seminar in Lithuania
Since 2019, TOLI has organized yearly Holocaust and human rights education seminars for Lithuanian educators, in partnership with the International Commission for the Evaluation of the Crimes of the Nazi and Soviet Occupation Regimes in Lithuania and the Lithuanian Jewish Community.
TOLI’s Lithuania seminar brings together 30 educators from across the country to learn the importance of the Holocaust and human rights. Through interdisciplinary methodology, teachers will learn how to use the lens of human rights to help their students understand how atrocities like the Holocaust are possible.
Prominent speakers include:
- Nobuki Sugihara, son of Japanese Ambassador Chiune Sugihara, who issued lifesaving passports to thousands of Lithuanian Jews during the Holocaust
- Silvia Foti, granddaughter of Jonas Noreika, a Nazi collaborator whos crimes against Jews are still not acknowledged in Lithuania
Along with lectures and workshops by local and international experts, participants will learn about the Holocaust in Lithuania through guided tours of Jewish Vilna, the Vilna Gain Jewish State Museum, and the Ponary Memorial Site.
All educators have access to recorded testimony by Assia Raberman, a Holocaust survivor who gave an emotional testimony during the first TOLI Lithuania Seminar on what was coincidentally her 91st birthday. At the conclusion of the seminar, teachers work together to plan activities for their classrooms based on the main lesson of seminar: the memory of the Holocaust is crucial to educating students, holding collaborators responsible for their crimes, and moving the general public away from nationalistic perspectives.
The goal of the seminar is for participants to:
- Develop an awareness of historical and current dialectical discussions concerning the Holocaust and other social injustices
- Increase their understanding of the impact of stereotypes, prejudices, and discrimination at the individual, group and institutional levels
- Deepen their knowledge of Jewish life before and after the Holocaust
- Increase appreciation for innovative, student- centered teaching methods, including extracurricular activities and partnerships between schools and other organizations
- Promote an interdisciplinary approach to Holocaust and human rights education
Impact Grants
Graduates of the seminar have the opportunity to apply for a impact grant to support a project related to Holocaust education and social justice. The grant consists of financial support and continuous mentorship throughout the school year. Every year, about 20 educators from Lithuania use a impact grant to implement local projects with their students.
The seminar is funded with the sponsorship of the Good Will Foundation.
