The Canadian province of Quebec has released its first English guide to genocide education.
The resource is geared to teachers for educating high schools students in Quebec about genocide, including the Holocaust, the Canadian Jewish News reported.
The guide, which follows the French version released in 2022, is the only educational material for the province’s schools on the Holocaust and other 20th century genocides.
The French and English resources are the work of Heidi Berger, the daughter of Holocaust survivors, who spent many years creating the guides after she found a severe lack of understanding of the Holocaust among Quebec high School students and could not find provincial educational Holocaust resources for classrooms.
She created the Foundation for Genocide Education NGO in 2014 to raise money for the project and lobby the Quebec government for Holocaust and genocide education. Her aim is to see that genocides become mandated to be taught in all schools in North America.
In April 2021, under a new genocide curriculum, Quebec announced it would begin teaching about the Holocaust and other mass murders, thanks for Berger’s initiative.
The English guide was released on April 27 as part of Genocide Awareness Month during a day-long teacher training session.
“Studying Genocide” contains lessons on nine 20th century genocides, including the Holocaust, the Armenian genocide, the Roma and Sinti genocide by the Nazis and the the Holodomor in Ukraine. It also defines genocide and lists the six stages leading to genocide.
“It examines the various genocides through testimony videos of survivors or children of survivors living in Canada today,” Berger told the Jewish News. “Reaction to the French version of the guide [used in the 2022-23 school year] by educators has been overwhelmingly positive.”