The Countering Holocaust Distortion in Education (CHDE) project is led by the Human Rights Institute from Slovakia in partnership with KiGA (Germany), Centropa (Hungary), and the Terezín Initiative Institute (Czechia), the project has been officially launched on March 1, 2025.
The project was born out of a growing concern: while Holocaust denial has increasingly been pushed to the margins of extremist discourse, Holocaust distortion remains widespread—especially online. Young people are particularly vulnerable, with harmful narratives spreading rapidly across social media. Strengthening resilience to these narratives during the formative school years is critical.
The CHDE project stands as a collective effort to ensure that education continues to serve as a powerful tool for remembrance, resilience, and responsibility, helping to build the capacities of the teachers and educators.
CHDE addresses this challenge by equipping educators with tools and knowledge to effectively counter distortion and promote historical truth. While schools offer key opportunities to foster critical thinking and remembrance, many teachers—especially at the lower and upper secondary levels—lack adequate support and training. Research highlights this gap but also shows a strong willingness among teachers to strengthen their skills in this area.
To respond to this need, CHDE will deliver a tailored series of online capacity-building activities, based on a needs assessment among teachers in Slovakia and Czechia. Educational online workshops will be developed jointly by all partner organizations, drawing on their extensive experience in Holocaust education, remembrance, and the fight against antisemitism and the Holocaust distortion.
The lead applicant, Human Rights Institute, will coordinate project implementation in both Slovakia and Czechia. Project impact will be measured through pre- and post-testing, and results will be widely disseminated across the EU.
CHDE project is supported by the European union under the Citizens, Equality, Rights and Values (CERV) programme of the European Union. (CERV-2024-CITIZENS-REM-HOLOCAUST)
For more information on the project, please visit: https://www.ludskeprava.sk/euprojekty/chde/#sthash.NcJXBxTr.dpbs
