Dervis Hizarci believes that openness to dialogue is key to his work as an educator. First at the Jewish Museum Berlin and now with KIgA, the Kreuzberger Initiative against Antisemitism, Hizarci works to confront hatred and ignorance, which can breed radicalism and violence.
Robert Örell got involved with the Swedish white power movement in his early teens. Now he works as director of Exit Sweden, the very organization that helped him leave neo-Nazism behind. Since 1998, Exit has helped hundreds separate from white supremacist gangs. Today, they are looking into ways their work might apply to other extremist organizations, including ISIS, religious cults, and criminal gangs.
Turkish scholar Pinar Dost-Niyego faces some hurdles when teaching the Holocaust in Istanbul—including Turkey's own history of antisemitism and anti-minority laws. But Dost-Niyego sees change in her students as they begin to connect with the personal stories of Holocaust victims.
Jamel Bettaieb teaches German to high-school students, which affords him an opportunity that is rare in Tunisia: to teach about the Holocaust. An active participant in Tunisia's recent revolution, Bettaieb strives to be an agent of change in the Muslim world, pushing back against propaganda, antisemitism, and silence about the Holocaust.
In his book Autobiography of a Recovering Skinhead, Frank Meeink describes with brutal honesty his descent into bigotry and violence as a teenage neo-Nazi. Through some surprising personal encounters, Meeink came to reject his beliefs and become an advocate for tolerance and diversity.
At the age of 50, Rabbi Gila Ruskin left her pulpit position to teach Jewish studies at an urban-Baltimore Catholic school with a historically African American student body. The experience led Ruskin to appreciate the many ways that Jews and African Americans can come together through a shared history of oppression and, she says, a commitment to prophetic ideals.
As a researcher for Microsoft and a fellow at Harvard's Berkman Center for Internet & Society, danah boyd looks at how young people interact with social network sites, like Facebook and MySpace. Her research has led her to develop interesting observations about the nature of hate speech on the internet and tactics for combating it.
Through her participation in a youth program at the US Holocaust Memorial Museum, Navila Rashid says she became a better Muslim. Rashid believes her encounters at the Museum gave her courage to continue on her own spiritual journey and compassion for people of other faiths.
Sayana Ser was born in Cambodia in 1981, two years after the fall of dictator Pol Pot. Today, Ser works to help her country heal from that genocide. As part of that effort, Ser decided to translate The Diary of Anne Frank into her native language of Khmer.
Concerned about a rise in racism and violence, Alexander Verkhovsky examines how interethnic conflict is fostered and spread throughout his native Russia.
Watch videos and read articles about the Holocaust and the conditions that made it possible.
