Peter Fredlake addresses workshop participants in Peabody Library’s Fireside Reading Room.

In April 2006, the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, in cooperation with the Warren Center, presented its first regional education summit, titled “Exploring the Future of Holocaust Education.” The program was designed to build connections between Holocaust educators and non-profit organizations with the same interests. The meeting drew thirty-five participants from across the Southeast and took place on Vanderbilt’s campus in Peabody Library’s Fireside Reading Room.

Peter Fredlake, coordinator of the museum’s Teacher Fellowship Program, approached the Warren Center about the collaboration due to the Center’s central involvement in the publication of The Holocaust and Other Genocides: History, Representation, Ethics (Vanderbilt University Press, 2002). In 1999 the Warren Center sponsored a year-long seminar on teaching the Holocaust and other genocides, which culminated in the publication of the interdisciplinary volume edited by current Warren Center director Helmut Walser Smith. The volume was distributed free-of-charge to all high schools, public and private, in the state of Tennessee.

Fredlake, a former high school teacher, said that educators often have difficulty finding the resources they need when teaching the Holocaust. One of the goals of the sessions was to help educators become aware of resources available at the local level and at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum. In addition, the museum was interested in assisting in the creation of a network to further Holocaust education in the Southeast region.

One of the participants, Paul Fleming, principal at Hume-Fogg High School in Nashville, Tennessee, said that the summit was notable in that it included both educators and staff members of regional Holocaust organizations. Both Ruth Tanner and Felicia Anchor from the Tennessee Holocaust Commission, as well as individuals from other state Holocaust commissions, participated in the conversations and roundtable discussions. There were several presentations by the Holocaust Museum’s historians, including Bridget Conley-Zilkic’s discussion of “Holocaust Education in the Age of Genocide,” and Will Meinecke’s presentation on “The Role of Teachers in Nazi Germany.”

Following the Nashville meeting, a second regional education summit was held in Denver, Colorado.