On March 2-3, we held a seminar for elementary and high school teachers from Podlaskie and Mazowieckie provinces. The starting point for reflection on Polish/Jewish history was the film “Who Will Write Our History”, which tells the unique story of the Ringelblum Archive – the Underground Warsaw Ghetto Archive. The archive, one of the most important sources on the extermination of Polish Jews, was found after the war and entered on the UNESCO Memory of the World Register.

We tried to translate the ideas of the Oneg Shabbat collection created in conspiracy into specific educational tools. We looked at the prewar Jewish community with the perspective of a history written from the bottom up, which gives subjectivity to ordinary people and shows the diversity of their fates.

The seminar provided a space for discussion on how to talk about the history and culture of Polish Jews by focusing on individual, local experiences. The participants were given tips on how to discover local Jewish history, how to look for information in online archives and how to access Ringelblum Archive materials on a given region online.

During the meeting we also talked about how to build youth engagement. We presented and discussed together exercises that can be carried out in the classroom. Part of the seminar was also an inspiring meeting with Mariusz Sokolowski, a teacher from Wasilków and Białystok, who for many years has been involved, together with his students, in preserving Jewish memory in his town.