Program Overview
We will update the program in the coming weeks with information about the scholars, journalists, and other experts who will speak at the 2025 Centropa Summer Academy.
Wednesday, July 9: Welcome; Introduction to Centropa; elective groups meet for first time; tour of Budapest from Heroes Square to Kossuth Square, Parliament, Basilica; Welcome Dinner.
Thursday, July 10: Tour of Jewish Budapest, including Dohany Synagogue; lecture: Hungarian Jewish history in the Modern Era; screening: Love on a Paper Airplane (Centropa film); presentation: Introduction to the Holocaust in Hungary; screening; The Mayor who Worked in Hell (from Centropa interview); meet with 3 Hungarian Holocaust survivors; group work.
Friday, July 11: Visit: Memorial for the Victims of the German Occupation, the Living Memorial, and the Danube Shoe Memorial; tour: Holocaust Documentation Center and Museum; panel: “Holocaust education in Europe, the US, and Israel” by leaders in the field; tour: Memento Park (statues from Hungary’s Communist period); Shabbat service, dinner.
Saturday, July 12: Panel: “Challenges of Holocaust Remembrance in the Visegrad Countries” (with leading NGOs and museums in Poland, Hungary, Slovakia, and Czech Republic); group work; Marketplace of Ideas (veteran teachers share their Centropa lessons); preparation for visit to Serbia; reception at the Austrian Ambassador’s residence.
Sunday, July 13: Traveling day to Belgrade. Stop in Subotica to visit the Jakab and Komor Square Synagogue (originally served Subotica’s Neolog community, designed in art nouveau style, and recently refurbished); lunch at Jewish community center; travel to Novi Sad to visit the monument to the victims of the raid there in WWII (read Centropa interview excerpts).
Monday, July 14: Walking tour of Jewish Belgrade, in the footsteps of the Kalef family (Centropa interviewees) and reading from their interviews; visit Staro Sajmiste (former concentration camp); lunch at synagogue and conversation with local rabbi and Jewish community members about contemporary Jewish life in Serbia; Serbian Education Ministry staff member will talk about Holocaust education in Serbia, followed by presentations from Centropa Serbian teachers; book discussion (required reading, tbd); elective group work.
Tuesday, July 15: visit to Sephardic cemetery and memorial for Jews who fought for Serbia in the Balkan Wars and WWI, the Kladovo transport memorial, and the Holocaust memorial; lecture on Culture and Remembrance in Serbia; screening of Centropa’s Survival in Sarajevo film; panel discussion with teachers and local civil society NGOs about the challenges of Holocaust education in the former Yugoslavia; in small groups, teachers present the lessons they designed throughout the CSA; final dinner at a restaurant along the Danube.
Wednesday, July 16: participants depart.
Note: Throughout, we will have reflection sessions so participants can share their responses to what they are learning and talk about how to bring it to their classrooms.
If you would like to have more information about our educational programs, please contact:
Fabian Rühle develops programs and runs seminars for schools all over Europe and Israel, and writes grant proposals for Centropa. Fabian emigrated from East Berlin to West Berlin in 1988. He has an M.A. in American History from Rutgers and the Free University of Berlin. Before joining Centropa in Vienna, Fabian worked for the American Jewish Committee in Berlin.
Dr. Lauren Granite directs our US educational programs. Before joining the Centropa staff, she spent more than a dozen years teaching Jewish history in colleges, Jewish day schools and congregational schools. As a teacher, Lauren created our first cross-cultural projects with Berlin and Budapest. And since 2010 she has been building our network of Jewish day and congregational schools; expanding into public, parochial and charter schools; running workshops and seminars; mentoring teachers; writing lessons and projects; and establishing teacher advisory teams to advise us about Centropa curricula.
Dr. Maria Lieberman studied Russian Language and Literature and Art History at ELTE (Hungary) and holds a PhD in the same subjects. She is passionate about informal education and Jewish heritage, and one of her core values is to preserve Jewish communities and heritage for the future. She has joined Centropa in 2022 as director of the Budapest office, overseeing our Hungarian and Jewish school programs.