TORONTO, May 31, 2001 -- Ten York University students have been awarded scholarships to participate in a unique international project. They will join students from Germany and Poland for three weeks in Europe this summer to explore issues in Holocaust and anti-racism education. The York students will depart from Toronto on July 29 and return August 22.

The students are part of a project called Learning from the Past, Teaching for the Future, intended to help them as future educators to develop curricular responses to racism and antisemitism in Germany, Poland and Canada. The students will participate in seminars at such places as the museum and memorial at Auschwitz, the Wannsee Conference House and Topography of Terror Foundation in Berlin, and the Ravensbrück concentration camp for women. The group will also meet with representatives of the Jewish community and other minority groups in Germany and Poland. In February 2002, the European students will join the Canadians at York for a week-long follow-up seminar that will include sessions open to the public.

Student participants represent such diverse fields as environmental studies, political science, Canadian studies, history, sociology, and religious studies. Nine of the York students are in the Faculty of Education’s concurrent program, including three in the Jewish Education stream.

"This program offers a unique opportunity for educators to talk about the importance of integrating an anti-racist, anti-bias perspective into their curriculum so future generations will not repeat the events of the past," says Jaya Gosyne, one of the York education students. "Most exciting for me is that by learning from one another we may be setting the wheels in motion for change."

The project is the brainchild of York professors Michael Brown and Mark Webber. Brown heads the Centre for Jewish Studies, and Webber is the associate director of the Canadian Centre for German and European Studies (CCGES).

Says Webber, "By looking to the past we prepare teachers to lead their students towards a better future. By looking at others, we not only overcome stereotypes about them, but also get to know ourselves better." Adds Brown, "The cooperation of so many individuals, institutions and groups both sets the stage for and reflects the aims of the project. We are grateful to our public and private sponsors and donors, and to our colleagues in Canada, Germany and Poland, for making the project a reality."

The project is funded by the Heinrich Böll Foundation of the Green Party of Germany, the Office for Democratic Education of Baden-Württemberg, the Topography of Terror Foundation in Berlin, the federal government’s Department of Canadian Heritage, York University, the Viadrina University in Frankfurt an der Oder, the Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznan, and private donors, including Allan and Hinda Silber, Al Schrage, Gerda Frieberg, and Joseph Lebovic.

-30-

A Web site with program details is located at: www.yorku.ca/tftf. 
For more information, please contact:

Professor Mark Webber
CCGES
York University
416-736-5695
mwebber@yorku.ca

Prof. Michael Brown
Centre for Jewish Studies
York University
416-736-5823
michaelb@yorku.ca

Ken Turriff
Media Relations
York University
416-736-2100, ext. 22086
kturriff@yorku.ca
YU/068/01