Remembering the Holocaust through Power of Place

Eighty-one years ago, on January 27, 1945, the Soviet Red Army liberated the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp in occupied Poland—a place where more than one million people were murdered as part of the Nazis’ so-called “Final Solution.” In November 2005, the United Nations designated January 27 as International Holocaust Remembrance Day, a time to honor the six million Jewish victims of the Holocaust and the millions of others targeted by Nazi persecution.

According to the United Nations, the word remembrance was chosen deliberately—to dignify victims and survivors and to keep alive the memory of the communities, traditions, loved ones, and lives the Nazis sought to erase.

But remembrance is impossible without knowledge. We cannot remember what happened if we are never taught about it or taught factually.

Last summer, two Fund for Teachers Fellows—educators from different states—found themselves standing side by side at Auschwitz and at multiple sites across the European theater of World War II. Their purpose was not only to deepen their own understanding of history, but to lead inquiry that fosters critical thinking, awareness, and action—both now and in the future.

Today, we’re learning from Jody Rohweller-Kocur, a teacher at Highland Park High School in Saint Paul, Minnesota, and Jenai Sheffels, a teacher at Tesla STEM High School in Redmond, Washington. Independently, both were awarded Fund for Teachers grants to participate in a program co-sponsored by the Jewish Community Relations Council of Minnesota and the Dakotas’ and the Humanus Network titled The Power of Place: 2025 European Summer Institute for Holocaust Educators, which took them to Austria, Poland, and Italy.

As Jody and I waited for Jenai to join our Zoom call, I asked how she was doing in Saint Paul—where earlier that day, in neighboring Minneapolis, ICE detained a five-year-old boy and his father while they were walking home from preschool. Hearing about the lengths to which Jody and her colleagues go to teach, protect, and care for their students opened the door to a larger conversation about perpetrators, bystanders, and upstanders—a conversation that feels, tragically, more urgent than ever.

Learn more about Fund for Teachers on our Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn pages and apply for YOUR self-designed fellowship at fundforteachers.org.

Music on podcast: Scott Harris: Clear Progress