Promoting Learning and Engagement

The Gonda Education Center provides crucial space for the Museum to conduct many activities including youth engagement and educational programs, insider briefings with high-level government officials, emerging scholars symposia and workshops, unique learning opportunities for societal leaders who safeguard our democracy, and exhibition experiences that provoke critical thinking about how and why the Holocaust happened.

Special exhibitions and events held in the Center in recent years have explored the following topics, among many others:

• Antisemitism: A special exhibition analyzed the origins and popularity of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, one of the most widely distributed antisemitic publications of all time. Training programs helped educators learn how to teach their students effectively about antisemitism.
   
• American responses to the Holocaust: Lectures and a special exhibition analyzed the actions of American relief and rescue workers, as well as American liberators of the Nazi camps.
   
• Contemporary genocide and mass atrocities: Private meetings and briefings with US government officials facilitated discussions about ongoing crises in Syria, South Sudan, and Burma.
   
• Holocaust experiences of specific groups of victims and refugees: Roundtable discussions examined the experiences and responses of Soviet and Sephardic Jews, Roma and Sinti, and German-Jewish refugees in Italy and the US. 
   
• Survivor testimony archives and new practices: Presentations addressed best practices and the use of new technologies in digitizing first-person accounts of the Holocaust.
   
• Special programming for youth and leaders:  Discussions and activities that promote critical thinking and self-reflection targeted for emerging adults (17-30 years) and societal leaders that exert influence over the life and liberty of civilians—particularly the military, law enforcement, and judges.

Participants in the programs held in the Gonda Education Center include university faculty and students, visiting research fellows, high school teachers and students, representatives of US government agencies, state and local law enforcement officers, religious leaders, Museum visitors, and others.