Nov

13 2025

How Jews Lived: Life Before the Holocaust: Educator Workshop | VHM

Join the Virginia Holocaust Museum and Centropa for a day of professional development focused on women’s stories.

When teaching about the Holocaust, it is not enough to teach how Jews were murdered; we must also teach students how Jews lived. Likewise, it’s not enough to teach Nazi stereotypes of Jews; we must educate students about the diversity of Jewish life in Europe before the war and give them an accurate picture of the group most targeted by the Nazis. Using the 1200 interviews and 23,000 digitized photographs of Jewish life in 15 Central and Eastern European countries collected by Centropa (www.centropa.org), we will explore the diversity of prewar European Jewish life (religious, social, economic, geographic), and the historical context from which Jews in Western, Central, and Eastern Europe faced the Nazis and their collaborators. Teachers will return to your students with a variety of resources that will help you teach about how Jews lived.

This workshop is free for educators and includes:

Breakfast, Coffee, and Lunch
Educator Resources
A certificate of attendance
Register here!

Deadline for Registration is November 6th

About Centropa: Centropa is a non-profit, Jewish historical institute dedicated to preserving 20th century Jewish family stories and photos from Central and Eastern Europe and the Balkans, and disseminating these stories and photos through films, books and exhibitions. Centropa offices are in Budapest, Hamburg and Washington, DC.

Sponsor: Virginia Holocaust Museum abd Centropa