Relating the Holocaust to the New Generation

By David Bidussa*

How can I relate the Holocaust to future generations?
This is a question that many people ask themselves. I will try to respond by asking another question: considering the continuous evolution of didactic strategies, how can we best propose a course of historical reflection that has the capacity to communicate the allure of research, of the dissection and reassembly of documents (be they visual, aural, written, electronic, digital, etc.)?

First, we should direct this question to education professionals, and abandon the idea that it is enough to merely “show” history. In other words, we must stop assuming that it is up to experts in contemporary history to furnish us with a satisfactory product. We can certainly ask them to authenticate documents, but then, in order to construct a narrative, other areas of expertise are needed, other sensibilities capable of making themselves heard and of operating on the wavelength of the language of the potential users.

*David Bidussa is an historian of social ideas.
The article was translated by Sabina Muccigrosso and Jazmine Pignatello, students at the Muhlenberg College (Chew St. Allentown, Pennsylvania USA).