What big questions should we be asking?

[Peter Fredlake]

This past November we convened the Regional Education Summit at the University of Wisconsin. One goal of the gathering was to provide an opportunity for us to have a conversation about the issues that matter to us. We used some big questions to get our conversations started (What is Holocaust education? How do we teach the Holocaust in an age of genocide? Who owns the story of the Holocaust? Whose story do we tell?).
This year we will convene three additional Summits, and I am looking for additional big questions. Pier Marton, for example, suggests that we imagine, "How will we teach the Holocaust 1,000 years from now?"
I'd love to hear from others about the questions we should be asking. The only criteria are that they spark conversation and have no correct answer.
As always, thanks for your help.

[GLincoln]

It is encouraging to see renewed interest in this social network site stemming from our participation in the USHMM Midwest Summit back in November 2008.

The big question which I would like to bring to the discussion forum relates to the expanded role of technology in all aspects of our lives. How can Internet resources and the virtual world enrich Holocaust education in a meaningful way?

[Pier Marton]

Besides trying to get a bird's eye view on the Holocaust in time, I think a similar question could be asked about "this very moment" which is a moment when, "unfortunately", some terrible injustice is happening to a another group of individuals.

Do we enter a competition in suffering? I know a Holocaust survivor who refuses to consider my family as survivors ("Hungarians had it bad only much later in the war, my dear mother was not in camps" - "only her mother" died in Auschwitz)

So, I would like to extend my question from time, to place. The Holocaust as seen many many years ahead, and the Holocaust in the context of the many injustices/genocides taking place today.

And to use the important work on framing, as described by the linguist, George Lakoff ("Don't think of an elephant"), how do we frame the Holocaust?
Here is George Lakoff describing the process of "framing":
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S_CWBjyIERY

[Pier Marton]

Here is, in Hungarian, a response to Hungarian Holocaust denial by a Hungarian sociologist friend, on Hungarian TV.
Lakoff seems most relevant to the issue of finding ways NOT TO BE ON THE DEFENSIVE in this realm. 6 to 15% of people, denying the Holocaust, represents a dangerous seed, in my view.

Tooting my own horn, I will be speaking in NYC (Fordham University Lincoln Center Campus) on Sept. 13, 12 p.m. My session is free and open to all: "The Holocaust in 1,000 Years" (sic). As Gertrude Stein said: If you can do it then why do it?
Here are the program and the bios, etc...:
Main Website:
http://www.generalsemantics.org/index.php/component/content/article...
Tentative Program:
http://www.generalsemantics.org/misc/2009akmlsymposium/2009_confere...
Bios:
http://www.generalsemantics.org/misc/2009akmlsymposium/2009_confere...