In Warsaw, a seminar on teaching the Shoah in France

A seminar dedicated to the Second Word War in France and the work of the Convoi 77 association took place in Warsaw, Poland, on October 16th and 17th, with around 70 people attending, mainly online.

The Warsaw Centre for Socio-Educational Innovation and Training (WCIES) organised the event with the help of The Genealogy Department of the Jewish Historical Institute and The Centre for French Culture and Francophone Studies (CFC).

Georges Mayer, president and founder of Convoi 77, Claire Podetti, history and geography teacher at Charles-Peguy middle school in Palaiseau (France) and Aleksandra Engler-Malinowska, coordinator of Convoi 77 in Poland, participated in the two-day long seminar, aimed at Polish teachers.

By focusing on Jews’ deportation from France and extermination in Poland and on the importance of Shoah in French politics, the event was designed to develop a better understanding of this chapter of history in France and to explore new ways of teaching it in Polish schools.

The main speakers were Arkadiusz Walczak, director of Warsaw Centre for Socio-Educational Innovation and Training (WCIES); Dr Nicolas Maslowski, director of CFC; Dr Ewa Tartakowsky, doctor in sociology, researcher at the Institute for Political Social Sciences (ISP), université Paris-Nanterre and researcher at CFC; Marek Ostrowski, journalist specialised in international relations for the weekly magazine “Polityka”; Dorota Kuczynska, guide at the Auschwitz-Birkenau National Museum; Robert Szuchta, history teacher, author of several books about teaching of Shoah; Anna Przybyszewska-Drozd, head of the Genealogy Department at the Jewish Historical Institute; Anna Matera-Klinger, French teacher at Karol Marcinkowski high school in Poznań; and Dariusz Łoboda, French teacher at Marie Konopnicka high school in Wloclawek.