Study trips to Poland offer best Holocaust education

About 30,000 Israeli high school students visit Poland each year.

By ETGAR LEFKOVITS
krakow poland jewish 88 (photo credit: )
krakow poland jewish 88
(photo credit: )
Study trips to Poland offer the best Holocaust education, a survey of Israeli high school and college students released Wednesday showed. Forty percent of Israeli high school and college students cited study trips to Poland as the most influential method of Holocaust education, while 24% said museums and seminars were best, the survey found. About 30,000 Israeli high school students visit Poland each year as part of Holocaust-education and other youth exchange programs. Aya Ben-Naftali, director-general of the Massuah Institute for the Study of the Holocaust which carried out the survey, said that its findings indicated the critical role that personal experiences have on Israeli youth in Holocaust education. She noted the influence such study trips had on Israeli youth, even though only 25 percent of Israeli high school pupils take part in the trips to Poland. The survey, which was released ahead of International Holocaust Day, also found that Israeli youth ranked movies and TV programs about the Holocaust as having a more significant role in Holocaust education than Holocaust classes in high school, 22% compared to 14%. The survey was carried out between November and January among 591 Israeli high school and college students. There was no margin or error cited in the survey.