Learning Through Experience
Learning Through Experience, the Institute’s cornerstone educational program, began as a one-day program in 1981 and has since grown into a three-day event. More than 3,000 middle and high school students and educators participate in a series of workshops related to the Holocaust and genocides. The event features guest speakers who have experienced the consequences of hate and prejudice and have acted with courage in the face of adversity.
Community Legacy Project
Initiated in 2005, the Community Legacy Project presents the stories of Holocaust survivors, liberators, rescuers, and their families who now live in our community. The project highlights the lessons of history as a way to foster discussion and create understanding about ongoing genocides. The Community Legacy Project preserves the history for future generations and ensures that the Holocaust and genocides are not revised, changed, or altered from the truth. As a teaching tool, the project supports the Holocaust curriculum mandated by the State of New Jersey.
Community Legacy Project - 7 minute Trailer
Video: Conversation with Survivors Part 1
Conversation with Survivors Part 1: Conversations with a Survivor and Students is an 11-minute film that addresses some of the difficult questions and concerns students raised by students in a round-table conversation with Ursula Pawel, a survivor of Theresienstadt and Auschwitz. The realization that the students, who are teenagers, were close to the age of the survivors, made the experience very personal. The students asked such questions as: Do you hate the Nazis? How do you feel about Germans of today? Are you able to visit or return to the places you were incarcerated during the Holocaust? What messages do you have for future generations?
Conversation with Survivors Part I: Conversations with a Survivor and Students
Conversations with The Other?
In 2015 the Holocaust Institute produced a documentary, Can Healing Occur: Building Bridges - Conversations with The Other? The film includes interviews and discussions with a Holocaust survivor, her adult daughter and her German nanny, and a man whose father was an SS officer. Topics include co-existence, reconciliation, and forgiveness. Click here to view the film.
The Second Generation
The Second Generation…. Ripples From the Holocaust is a documentary that focuses on the experiences of children of Holocaust survivors, with commentary from a psychologist about how the effects of their parents’ trauma impact the second generation. The documentary includes interviews, personal family photographs, and archival footage. The children of Holocaust survivors who are featured in the documentary are active members of the Institute for Holocaust and Genocide Studies at RVCC. Click here to view the film.