The Greek Holocaust in school and public history

The almost total eradication of Greece’s Jewish communities, primarily during World War Two, is kept to the small print in the History taught in schools, and remained largely absent from public discourse for many decades. The marked contrast with the situation in other Western European countries raises a number of crucial questions: Might the Greek state and political and academic élites have considered the Holocaust to be of secondary importance beside the wars and political conflicts that have riven the Greek 20th century? Were the Jews considered ‘proper Greeks’ down the ages, especially the Jewish communities of Northern Greece, an area which had only been incorporated into the modern Greek state thirty years or less before the outbreak of World War Two? Is anti-Semitism an issue in Greece?

The “History as a historical phenomenon and the teaching of History” cycle seeks to shed light on such critical issues as the molding of the collective consciousness through the way History is taught in schools and through public debate on historical matters, and the oft-noted disparity between the History of specialist historians on the one hand, and the ‘official’ version of history taught in schools, and public history in general, on the other. It will also address how political goals and social trends can impact on the teaching of History.