Learning from history — experience of totalitarian regimes of the 20th century

The website "Learning from History" is a publication platform for educational projects dedicated to the history of Poland and its neighbors in the 20th century and human rights

Skip to navigation
News article

How to engage youth through memoire literature and eye witnesses stories?

“How can we engage young people in commemorating the past and combating antisemitism through memoir literature?”
We invite you to a workshop that serves as a forum for discussion about memoir literature addressing difficult topics and its role in education, which contributes to reducing antisemitism.

 
06–05–2026

We invite you to the fifth event in the series—“Education Against Antisemitism: Learning from the Past to Understand Contemporary Challenges. A Multimedia Educational Kit.”

This time, we invite you to participate in workshops that will serve as a forum for discussion about memoir literature addressing difficult topics and its role in education, which contributes to reducing antisemitism.

The meeting, titled “How to Engage Youth in Commemoration and Countering Antisemitism Through Memoire Literature and Eye Witnesses Stories?”, will take place on Saturday, May 16, 2026, at the Narutowicz Institute’s Educational Center in Warsaw (20 Andersa St.) from 11:00 AM to 4:00 PM.

We invite you—practitioners—as we want to ensure that the lesson plans we are developing for students on antisemitism, the Holocaust, and remembrance fully meet the needs of classroom and workshop settings.

Event schedule:

11:00 AM – 11:30 AM Registration, welcome, coffee

11:30 AM – 12:45 PM Screening of the film “The Granddaughter of the Chief” and a conversation with director Masha Makarova

Introduction on the moral dilemmas of witnesses to historical events, Robert Szuchta

12:45 – 14:15 Workshops (please choose one of the two below):

– lesson plans based on the books *Was I Afraid of Death?* by Hedi Fried (identity, the rise of discrimination) and “The Girl from the Closed City” by Larissa Cain (Life Before the War, In Hiding, In the Ghetto, After the War) (Agnieszka Kudełka/Katarzyna Niewczas/Mariusz Sokołowski)

– lesson plans – Between Good and Evil. A Person in an Extreme Situation – Dilemmas Based on the Memoirs of Hedi Fried (Robert Szuchta)

2:15 PM – 3:00 PM Lunch break

3:00 PM – 3:45 PM Panel discussion “How to engage young people in remembrance and combating antisemitism” (guests: Robert Szuchta; Masha Makarova; Alicja Kotowska, Center for Research on Prejudice)

3:45 PM – 4:00 PM Summary and evaluation survey

Link to the registration form: https://forms.gle/4kb4ntFBrFgHBKAv6

Facebook event: https://fb.me/e/a5MwUr4RN

Your experience is invaluable to us, so we hope to see a large turnout this time as well (we anticipate at least 25 participants from Poland and Lithuania).

If you have any questions, please contact us at: [email protected] or by phone at 22 848 07 12.

The “Educational Toolkit” Project Team, the KARTA Center Foundation, and Consortium Partners

Event co-organizer: The Gabriel Narutowicz Institute of Political Thought in Warsaw

Funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Education and Culture Executive Agency (EACEA). Neither the European Union nor EACEA can be held responsible for them.