Teachers from Roman Catholic schools who participated in a recent course on the Holocaust have expressed that the workshop has inspired them to use education as a means to address the lasting effects of historical tensions between Catholics and Jews. After just two days of attending the workshop, titled "Bearing Witness: Anti-Semitism, the Holocaust, and Contemporary Issues," some of the 40 teachers and administrators found themselves profoundly moved by the content and were considering ways to incorporate it into their teaching.
Marietta D’Alessandro, a U.S. history and social studies teacher at St. Gabriel of the Sorrowful Virgin School in Pittsburgh, revealed that she learned specific details about how certain Catholic Church leaders contributed to anti-Semitism over the centuries, which she had not known before. As a Catholic, D’Alessandro believes that it is the role of Catholic-school teachers to continue the work of reconciliation that Pope John Paul II initiated.
For almost a decade, a strong partnership between Catholic and Jewish organizations, as well as the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, has provided approximately 300 educators from Catholic schools the opportunity to attend the annual summer workshop in Washington, D.C., free of charge. Michael P. Leonard, a Catholic teacher of religious studies at St. John’s Preparatory School in Danvers, Massachusetts, expressed that he now has a deeper understanding of the personal nature of the violence that occurred during the Holocaust. Leonard plans to incorporate this knowledge into an ethics course he will be teaching in the upcoming fall semester.
During the workshop, which attracts many secondary school teachers of history, religion, and social studies, attendees were educated about the Catholic Church’s role in the Middle Ages, which involved restricting Jews, promoting separation between Jews and Christians, and perpetuating falsehoods about Jews.
Bruce J. Kirsch, a Jewish history teacher at Bishop Lynch High School in Dallas, also attended this summer’s "Bearing Witness" seminar. Kirsch stated that the workshop has allowed him to envision teaching a semester-long course on the Holocaust or leading a study trip on Jewish and Catholic history that would take his students to Israel, Rome, and a former concentration camp in Poland.
The Holocaust Museum in Washington has been providing workshops to thousands of public and private school teachers since its opening in 1993. The museum’s website, www.ushmm.org, is a valuable resource for teaching materials, and it often collaborates with educational organizations to sponsor teacher workshops across the United States on the topic of the Holocaust. However, the "Bearing Witness" seminar is unique in that it exclusively admits educators from Catholic schools.
The idea for the workshop emerged from conversations between Cardinal James A. Hickey, the former archbishop of Washington, and David C. Friedman, the regional director of the Anti-Defamation League’s Washington office. The "Bearing Witness" program was initially launched in 1995 and was limited to educators from Catholic schools in the Washington area. The Anti-Defamation League, the Archdiocese of Washington, and the Holocaust Museum sponsored the program. In 1998, the program expanded to include educators from Catholic schools nationwide, and the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and the National Catholic Educational Association based in Washington also joined the partnership.
Steve Werle, a social studies educator at the Academy of Holy Angels in Richfield, Minnesota, and a participant in the enlightening "Bearing Witness" initiative last summer, expressed how this program empowered him to engage in conversations with his students regarding the significant involvement of the Catholic Church in the historical context of anti-Semitism. Wishing to highlight the significance of this experience, he emphasized, "When the leadership within the Catholic Church is open to spreading such knowledge, I felt unburdened to engage my students in discussing it."
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