Two University of Macau (UM) students have been selected to take part in the first-ever seminar for Chinese educators on Holocaust Education at the International School for Holocaust Studies, at Yad Vashem, the Holocaust Martyrs’ and Heroes’ Remembrance Authority in Jerusalem, Israel, Yad Vashem, with support from the Adelson Family Foundation, is sponsoring a trip for twenty-two Chinese educators from Macao, Hong Kong and the Chinese Mainland to spend two weeks learning about the Holocaust, the systematic murder of the Jews of Europe during World War II, and how they might teach this important subject when they return home. The twenty-two scholars will fly from Hong Kong and Beijing to Tel Aviv on Sunday (3 October 2010) and will return to Macao, Hong Kong and China on 18 October.

The students are Jiang Wei, who is currently working towards his PhD degree in the Department of Communication, under the supervision of Prof. Tan See Kam, and Azita Kuok, an MA student in the Department of English. A total of six people have been selected from Macao, and a number of these are former UM students who are now working as school teachers or translators. The twelve people from the Chinese mainland are university professors from the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences in Beijing, Nanjing University, Shanghai University, Shandong University, Kaifeng University, Shanxi University and a school teacher from Shanghai. Others are school teachers and PhD students of the University of Hong Kong.

The primary aim of this seminar is to give participants a thorough grounding in the
history of the Holocaust, with lectures on all aspects of this subject, visits to the Yad Vashem Museum, meetings and discussion with Holocaust survivors and interacting with leading historians and educators. At the same time it is hoped that educators will find ways to draw connections with their own history and thereby become motivated to teach their students about events in China, such as the Nanjing Massacre and the atrocities committed at Unit 731 in Manchuria, as well as acts of genocide in Asia, for example in Cambodia.

Teaching the Holocaust should aim not only to make people aware of what happened, though this is essential, but also to explain how and why it happened, so that such crimes against humanity might be prevented in future. Lessons from the Holocaust and from Chinese history must seek to address issues like racial and cultural discrimination, the importance of tolerance and respect owing to every human individual.

Over the two-week seminar, participants will be introduced to concepts in Judaism, Jewish history, the background to the long presence of Jewry in Europe, and the rise and role of anti-Semitism in creating a situation which made the Holocaust possible.

In addition to an intensive programme of learning, participants will also be taken on tours to important sites in Israel, including the Old City in Jerusalem, the Dead Sea, Masada and Tel Aviv.

The tour will be led by Prof.Glenn Timmermans from UM’s Department of English, and he will also give some of the lectures at the seminar. For further information, please contact Prof. Timmermans at +853 – 66505950 or at gtimmer@um.edu.mo

It is hoped that when these educators return to Macao in the middle of October they will be able to share their important experiences with members of the Macao public.

As a continuation of annual screenings of Holocaust-related films (The Mascot, 2008; Inside Hanna’s Suitcase, 2009), Prof. Timmermans plans to show three films at UM in November this year: one is the first Chinese film on a Jewish theme, the animated A Jewish Girl in Shanghai (2010) as well as the documentary, Shanghai Ghetto (2002), both dealing with how Jewish refugees found refuge from Nazi persecution in Shanghai during the war years. The third film, Forgotten Transports to Estonia (2008), deals with the plight of a group of Czech-Jewish women. Further details will follow in late October.