Strengthening the remembrance of the Holocaust against Jewish people

2. CERV-2025-CITIZENS-REM-HOLOCAUSTJEW - Strengthening the remembrance of the Holocaust against Jewish people

The Shoah is a defining legacy for the EU. Six million Jewish children, women and men were murdered, and all others were persecuted. While other groups were persecuted, the Nazis have set up across Europe and beyond a state policy with the sole aim to kill every single Jews they could find.

First-hand accounts of the Shoah continue to have the most powerful impact on following generations. As there are less and less survivors to share the story of their survival, the importance of memorial sites and education increases, as well as the work done by second and third generations of survivors and associations.

Current events show the growing instrumentalization of the Holocaust by Kremlin propaganda claiming to denazify Ukraine. In parallel, there is also a politicization of the Holocaust in several EU Member States, and a tendency to minimize the atrocities of the Shoah. In addition, since the 7 October 2023 attacks by Hamas, we have seen a growing conflation of the Shoah with the conflicts in the Middle East. Citizens should be empowered to counter this conflation.

Holocaust distortion fuels antisemitism. In addition, hate speech relating to the condoning, denial or gross trivialisation of the Holocaust is prohibited under the Council Framework Decision on combating certain forms and expressions of racism and xenophobia by means of criminal law.

Wounds of mass atrocities of the 20th century are still open today, fuelling divergences among Europeans. Free, open and independent research, education and memory on all aspects of the Shoah is essential to increase understanding. This includes telling the story of collaborators, bystanders, and saviours. This implies exploring Europe’s negative history with the aim to reconcile divergent and alternative regional and national narratives related to the Shoah and its immediate aftermath.

European citizens should become ambassadors of this memory. Teachers, policy-makers, university students (especially history students) could be among key target audiences and be empowered to develop a common European history, to counter historical falsification, distortion and inversion. Target groups could include newcomers and migrants that do not have a direct link with the Shoah. Target groups could also include journalists, to raise awareness about Holocaust distortion and Holocaust-related contemporary events (such as for example Neo-Nazi marches).

In line with the EU Strategy on combating antisemitism and fostering Jewish life (2021-2030), as well as with other key policy initiatives, this topic supports projects that can focus on developing networks of Young European Ambassadors to promote Shoah remembrance. This topic will also support projects that develop and support networks that use places of memory, ‘where the Holocaust happened’ for educational purposes.

Projects under this topic could focus on:

• Addressing how the Shoah took place, how the crimes were committed, which actors were involved, the roles of collaborators and bystanders, as well as the roles of saviours and Righteous among the Nations. As well as pre-war and immediate postwar historical developments.
• Countering Holocaust denial, distortion, trivialisation and victims’ inversion. This includes countering false comparisons, conspiracy theories propagated online, and conflation with the Middle East conflict.
• Countering historical falsification and memory competition related to the Shoah, especially among Europeans that shared a common history but have divergent views on their common past.
• Addressing divergent and opposite national historical narratives, on regional basis, of the history of the Shoah, including parallelism with other negative common shared historical regional events.
• Promoting memory activism related to the Shoah including by supporting grassroot commemorative work.
• Digitalising historical material and testimonies of witnesses for education and training purposes.
• Marking International Holocaust Remembrance Day and national Holocaust remembrance days.
• Combating glorification of Nazism, countering neo-Nazis manifestations and activities.
• Promoting provenance research on looted art to foster awareness raising, mutual learning or training activities.

For further information about the call and its conditions, please see the Call document.