The question how to study, teach and remember historical mass crimes, above all the Holocaust and Slavery, has become emblematic in recent years. This 3rd Balzan Bystanding Lecture took up the challenge and provided grounds for a relational perspective based on new conceptual thinking from the field of Transitional Justice and fresh empirical work on how Dutch teachers address these issues in their every-day educational work.

Nicole Immler opened with a paper focusing on what (Holocaust) historians might learn from a Transitional Justice perspective, in particular from the recognition and repair instruments (of which education is one aspect) that deal with the history and aftermath of the Holocaust, colonial regimes, and slavery. Joandi Hartendorp then presented the findings of her dissertation on Dutch history education and its relation to cultural memory. Highlighting that the teaching of the Holocaust and colonialism lacks a critical discussion of perpetration she pleaded for abandoning the ‘black or white’/’evil’ or ‘good’ dichotomy. Rather, a spectral approach would allow pupils to better comprehend the choices contemporaries made. Martijn Eickhoff offered a commentary, which was followed by a panel discussion and Q & A, moderated by Christina Morina and Martijn Eickhoff.

More information about the event can be found here.