Scholars discuss teaching the Holocaust in different countries

Leading Holocaust scholars from China and Israel discussed their unique perspectives on the Holocaust in an event sponsored by the USC Shoah Foundation on Thursday.

Global scope · Xin Xu, director of the Glazer Institute of Jewish Studies at Nanjing University, explained his teaching experience on Thursday. – Juliette Pisani | Daily Trojan

USC Shoah Foundation Executive Director Stephen Smith moderated the discussion between Xin Xu, director of the Glazer Insitute of Jewish Studies at Nanjing University, and Yehuda Bauer, professor emeritus at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. The scholars explained their experiences teaching about the Holocaust in different corners of the globe.

The two scholars spoke about how different cultures across the globe can learn from each other through the perspective of the Holocaust, as well as other genocides.

“You can’t measure suffering,” Bauer said. “There is no difference between the suffering of Jews, Armenians, Chinese or Cambodians and this creates a global perspective.”

Xu said the presence of the Holocaust in Chinese academia has been increasing since the late 1990s. Since then, the link between these two cultures has become more important.

“There is a universality of this discussion tonight,” said Josh Grossberg, USC Shoah Foundation public communication manager. “They are very different cultures, but they can learn from each other even though they historically may not have mingled.”

“It was a fortuitous circumstance that we had the opportunity to have two of the foremost Holocaust scholars to convene to discuss the challenges of teaching Holocaust education in different political, social and linguistic cultures,” said Dan Leshem, associate director of the USC Shoah Foundation.

Xu was visiting USC to help the Shoah Foundation collect testimonies of the Nanjing Massacre, and Bauer stopped in Los Angeles on his way back to Israel after giving a lecture at the University of Honolulu.

“We were grateful for these circumstances as this would have been very difficult to arrange from scratch,” Leshem said.

Students such as Grace Braun, a freshman majoring in business administration, found that the discussion gave her a new perspective on her Jewish studies class.

“It was very interesting to hear the Chinese perspective on the Holocaust from Xu and hearing how they learn about genocide in general,” Braun said

Students enrolled in the course “The Holocaust” are using one of Brauer’s books as their textbook. Jordan Lieberman, a freshman majoring in economics, enjoyed the opportunity to gain personal insight from the author.

“In the textbook, Brauer writes in a very clinical tone so it was cool to hear more of his personal opinion and how he analyzes different topics,” Lieberman said. “It really made the textbook come to life a little.”

Saul Ortiz, a freshman majoring in business administration, said he was grateful for the opportunity attend the event.

“I gained a lot of knowledge about the topic tonight,” Ortiz said. “I felt it benefited me not just from a history standpoint but also individually because I gained a new perspective.”