Holocaust-Education in der Luxemburger Schule

This dissertation examines how the Luxembourgish school system has approached the teaching of the Holocaust from 1947 to 2014. Against the backdrop of the growing internationalization and moralization of Holocaust remembrance since the 1990s — a development reinforced by initiatives such as the Stockholm International Forum and the emergence of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance

— the study explores how global expectations intersect with Luxembourg’s national educational policies, curricular frameworks, and classroom practices.

Through an analysis of parliamentary debates, national curricula, textbooks, teachers’ materials, and interviews with secondary-school educators, the research identifies a structural gap between the widely acknowledged necessity of Holocaust education and its limited formal anchoring in official programs. Despite this institutional “vacuum,” teachers frequently integrate the topic autonomously, drawing on a variety of external resources such as survivor testimonies, pedagogical visits to former camps, and film-based or museum-based materials

.

The dissertation situates these practices within broader debates on national memory, Luxembourg’s role during the Second World War, and shifting understandings of civic and moral education. The findings reveal a heterogeneous and partly decentralized field of Holocaust education in Luxembourg, shaped less by prescriptive curricular directives than by the initiatives of individual educators and the influence of international memory politics. The study contributes to understanding how small states negotiate global expectations regarding Holocaust remembrance within their educational systems and highlights the need for clearer institutional frameworks to support teachers in addressing this historically and ethically significant subject.