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Last update - 13:06 03/01/2008
For Dutch educators, Islamophobia can be a teaching aid for Holocaust studies
By Cnaan Liphshiz and Ruthie Pliskin, Haaretz Correspondents
Tags: Yad Vashem, Israel 

The Yad Vashem Holocaust Martyrs' and Heroes' Remembrance Authority this week hosts a week-long seminar for 21 teachers, the first run by the museum for Dutch educators, with one day devoted to discussions about teaching Holland's Muslim minority about the Shoah.

When teaching Holocaust studies to Dutch Muslim teenagers in Amsterdam, Mustafa Daher says he first has to defuse his pupils' own hostility toward Jews and Israel.

"If I don't capture their interest, then I have done nothing. So I use the rising Islamophobia to help them connect to the persecution of the Jews," the seasoned educator says.
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"For example, I tell them that when the Nazis suspected someone was Jewish, they would pull down his pants to see if he was circumcised. Then I remind my Muslim students they are also 'snipped.' So they, too, would've ended up in a concentration camp," says Daher.

Judith Whitlau, who teaches groups about the Holocaust at the Dutch Theater in Amsterdam, says she has to contend with another analogy.

"Some point to media reports from the occupied territories, and they want to know what exactly Israel itself is doing to internalize the Holocaust's lessons as it preaches others should do."

But not all the teachers in the group have Muslim students. Franca Verheijen teaches at an affluent school in Leiden, some 35 minutes by train from Amsterdam. There, drawing parallels between Islamophobia and anti-Semitism can be counterproductive.

"If I make this connection, some students usually reject the analogy, saying that unlike the Muslims, the Jews never engaged in terrorism," she says.

Another charged issue for the teachers is the question of complicity. Some 100,000 Dutch men and women belonged to the country's Nazi party during the war, openly collaborating with German authorities.

Despite this, Meir Villegas Henriquez from the Hague-based Jewish non-profit Center for Information and Documentation on Israel (CIDI), said he wouldn't want to see a whole chapter in the school curriculum on Dutch Nazis.

"We're here to educate, not blame," the delegation organizer said.

Other participants in the seminar - which is partly funded by the Dutch government's Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies - were also hesitant about the issue.

"For many people this is taboo and we can't afford to waste our two weekly hours [for history] on it," said Wout Claessens from the eastern Netherlands.

One advantage Dutch teachers have over colleagues abroad, they all agreed, was the diary of Anne Frank, the world-famous manuscript written in hiding in Amsterdam by the young girl who later died in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp.

Her story, which is mandatory reading in Dutch elementary schools, is still very useful in helping young pupils connect to the Holocaust, the teachers said. According to Henriquez, Frank's image is so indelibly etched into the Dutch psyche, that it can sometimes overshadow current problems.

"When our organization, CIDI, released its annual report last month on a 64-percent hike in anti-Semitic incidents, the study received less exposure than the decision to fell the tree outside Anne Frank's hiding place," he complained.

"Her story is a big frame of reference, but the Netherlands still has a Jewish population which is facing some challenges."

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  1.   Educating the teacher 13:26  |  Historian 01/01/08
  2.   Sick Parallelism 13:55  |  Israeli Citizen 01/01/08
  3.   present times.. 14:44  |  another dutch boy 01/01/08
  4.   is that shit of the bull? 15:03  |  diego 01/01/08
  5.   Dutch Theater 15:07  |  Zwi Eshed 01/01/08
  6.   Holland has already officially announced that it expects to be 15:09  |  redmike 01/01/08
  7.   while we`re at it... 15:14  |  Abigail 01/01/08
  8.   Videofile is broken 15:17  |  DK 01/01/08
  9.   1 - "every man woman and child" ? 15:20  |  redmike 01/01/08
  10.   #3 Zackowski 15:24  |  Axel 01/01/08
  11.   Dutch boys 15:41  |  Nice bloke 01/01/08
  12.   On Holland, Jews and Islamophobia 15:43  |  Real Dutchman 01/01/08
  13.   #6 diego 15:44  |  Axel 01/01/08
  14.   Muslim racists 15:48  |  Romeo 01/01/08
  15.   NO TO EXPLOITATION 16:14  |  Raj 01/01/08
  16.   Historian do you support Sharia law in Holland? 16:24  |  want to know 01/01/08
  17.   To Real Dutchman Think Before you 16:36  |  Ahmed 01/01/08
  18.   To Italian Romeo 16:39  |  African 01/01/08
  19.   Romeo Do you Remmeber the Facist 16:39  |  Ahmed 01/01/08
  20.   Serves Europe Right 16:45  |  Observer 01/01/08
  21.   Real Dutchman and Romeo 17:07  |  Thanks 01/01/08
  22.   No comparison between Holocaust & "Islamophobia" 17:19  |  David W. 01/01/08
  23.   Thank you Haaretz 17:35  |  Michael 01/01/08
  24.   # 2 Israeli Citizen & Islamophobes 17:42  |  Bob 01/01/08
  25.   The Solution 17:46  |  Danite 01/01/08
  26.   I wonder 18:23  |  Danite 01/01/08
  27.   To real Dutchman 18:34  |  Marlene N. 01/01/08
  28.   Educating the "Historian" #1 18:49  |  Bruce 01/01/08
  29.   To African 18 18:55  |  Afrikaner 01/01/08
  30.   Ahmed 17 19:01  |  Real Dutchman 01/01/08
  31.   Israeli Terror 19:06  |  Sam 01/01/08
  32.   African vs. Romeo 19:06  |  Bruce 01/01/08
  33.   To Ahmed & African 19:16  |  Romeo 01/01/08
  34.   The dutch boy has never been to Gaza#3 19:16  |  William 01/01/08
  35.   islamophobia leads to understanding of judaism? 19:21  |  muslim 01/01/08
  36.   Raj#15 - No to revisionism! 19:24  |  William 01/01/08
  37.   another jong - the Dutch educators arent into lies 19:25  |  Iz Ray Leigh 01/01/08
  38.   26. danite you are a fantasy: do not exist 19:30  |  muslim 01/01/08
  39.   #9 Redmike, What is your solution? 19:32  |  Kevin 01/01/08
  40.   Bob in Munich#24 - difference in perspective 19:33  |  William 01/01/08
  41.   # 15 if it were not for the holocaust 19:36  |  Kris 01/01/08
  42.   To Marlene N 19:43  |  Bruce 01/01/08
  43.   # 16 for someone part of a people who claim 19:48  |  Kris 01/01/08
  44.   #17 - the question of loyalty is very real in the English police 19:53  |  redmike 01/01/08
  45.   Historian Dutch Boy 19:53  |  Tex 01/01/08
  46.   common perception? 19:54  |  hollingsworth 01/01/08
  47.   Wrong equivalence 19:54  |  Frank 01/01/08
  48.   Ahmed 19:55  |  like it is 01/01/08
  49.   Ironic. Jews becoming the source of Islamophobia 20:12  |  CheeseMan 01/01/08
  50.   Cheesey Irony 20:18  |  UR Nuts 01/01/08
  51.   #39 Kevin and what is your solution? 20:19  |  tell me 01/01/08
  52.   another dutch boy...my grandparents had 20:20  |  Lynn 01/01/08
  53.   Educating about a tortured people who now torture others 20:21  |  EuroStar 01/01/08
  54.   # 20 you are annoying 20:21  |  Kris 01/01/08
  55.   # 35 muslim and 12 hundred years hasn`t 20:22  |  Lynn 01/01/08
  56.   To #53: Poor psychological warfare 20:41  |  Frank 01/01/08
  57.   # 51 The problem in Tell Me`s imagination 21:03  |  Kevin 01/01/08
  58.   # 12 Real Dutchman, there is no better... 21:15  |  Edith 01/01/08
  59.   dutch/western/christian fobia 21:18  |  Yos 01/01/08
  60.   The Return of Hollingsworth 21:20  |  Danite 01/01/08
  61.   # 53 Eurosh...t 21:23  |  Edith 01/01/08
  62.   EuroStar-Palestine?What Palestine? 21:30  |  come on 01/01/08
  63.   Islamophobia in Holland and palestinophobia in Israel 21:45  |  A Dutch Jew 01/01/08
  64.   Thank you EuroStar No. 53 21:47  |  Marlene N. 01/01/08
  65.   Frank - you got it right! FINALLY! 21:48  |  Eurostar 01/01/08
  66.   A WASTE OF TIME! 21:53  |  Yechiel HaGoan 01/01/08
  67.   #46 - so what were Jews guilty of ? Pretty anti-semitic hey ?! 22:02  |  redmike 01/01/08
  68.   #39 - sadly WW3 - the alternative is Sharia 22:10  |  redmike 01/01/08
  69.   ANOTHER DUTCH BOY 22:16  |  TOBIA 01/01/08
  70.   BIG TALK #46 22:23  |  TOBIA 01/01/08
  71.   Dutch and holocaust 22:27  |  siegfried buchwalte 01/01/08