Holocaust Educational Trust

Who we are

The Holocaust Educational Trust was founded in 1988. Our mission is to raise awareness and understanding in schools and amongst the wider public of the Holocaust and its relevance today. It is our belief that the Holocaust must have a permanent place in our nation’s collective memory.

One of the Trust’s earliest achievements was to ensure that the Holocaust was included in the National Curriculum for England in 1991 – for Key Stage 3 students (11-14 year olds). The Holocaust has remained on the National Curriculum since then. We also successfully campaigned to have the assets of Holocaust victims and survivors released and returned to their rightful owners in the late 1990s.

Since 1999 the Trust’s Lessons from Auschwitz Project has given tens of thousands of post-16 students and teachers the opportunity to visit the Nazi concentration and death camp Auschwitz-Birkenau, as part of a four-part educational programme. Since 2008 the Project has received Government funding. Having played a crucial role in the establishment of Holocaust Memorial Day in the UK in 2001, the Trust continues to play a key role in the delivery of this national commemorative day.

In March 2020, due to the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Trust suspended all overseas projects and in-person educational programmes. Since then, we have adapted our work by facilitating online sessions so that Holocaust survivors can continue to share their testimony through video calls, creating specialist home learning resources for teachers and families to use remotely, and using the latest in digital technologies to explore sites of the Holocaust.

Through our work we are enabling young people to understand the past and empowering them to stand up against antisemitism, prejudice and hatred in all its forms, to shape a more positive future. Today, our work is more vital than ever. In an increasingly fragile world and a volatile political climate here and abroad, it is so important that we work to educate young people about the Holocaust and its contemporary relevance.