Holocaust education will soon become compulsory in schools. Our research shows how it can be done well

Australia’s education ministers have agreed to update the national curriculum to include teachings of the Holocaust, Jewish history and the contributions of Jewish Australians.

It follows concerns of rising antisemitism in the country, nearly a year after the Bondi Beach attack.

Our research, published by Monash University as a report in July, explores the role of Holocaust education in addressing antisemitism in Australia.

Our findings offer insights into the current issues with Holocaust education and how it can be taught well.

Our research

Holocaust education is already mandated in the high school history curricula in Victoria and New South Wales.

In 2025, we interviewed 22 educators, scholars and museum professionals who teach the Holocaust (mostly to non-Jewish audiences) in Australia. The interviews took place before the Bondi Beach attack on December 14 2025.

We selectively approached these participants, some who are researching Holocaust education itself. Many of the participants are also leading voices in the field.

Participants were asked to share their perspectives on the role of Holocaust education in addressing antisemitism in contemporary, multicultural societies, such as Australia.

What we found

Holocaust education is often treated as a natural response to antisemitism. This is because the Holocaust highlights the worst instance of allowing antisemitism to fester unaddressed.

In our interviews, participants broadly agreed the Holocaust should be taught as a historical subject in schools. However, many participants described Holocaust education as one tool among many, and insufficient on its own, in countering antisemitism.

Several educators raised concerns about the implications of relying on teaching the Holocaust as the only window into Jewish life for young people and students.

As a Holocaust scholar noted:

One of the challenges is that – for most students – if the first and only class that they’re ever going to learn about the Jews is through the lens of the Holocaust, then Holocaust education introduces Jews through the lens of Nazi antisemitism and then presents the Jews on the path to destruction and annihilation. I think that’s very problematic.

What are the challenges?

School teachers also told us there is a gap between the mandate to teach the Holocaust, and how it is actually taught in the classroom.

As one NSW teacher noted, there is not enough guidance about how to teach the Holocaust and what the learning outcomes are:

[…] at the moment there is no clear articulation on whether we’re teaching an important historical event, whether we’re teaching citizenship, or whether we’re instrumentalising the Holocaust to promote social tolerance, social cohesion and anti-racism programs.

Uncertainty post-October 7

Since the Hamas attacks of October 7 2023, participants also described growing hesitancy among some teachers about teaching the topic at all. This is often due to uncertainty or anxiety about potential questions from students about the recent conflict in Gaza.

One Jewish educator at a Holocaust museum observed:

Teachers are very scared to teach this. They either have a very strong opinion and might be bringing that into the classroom, or really don’t know enough about it and are very scared because they know they’re not supposed to bring their own personal views into the classroom and they don’t know how to talk about it.

This suggests teachers need more support to feel more confident about how to approach these issues in appropriate ways when they surface.

How can we do it well?

Teachers had several ideas about how to improve Holocaust education in schools.

1. Make connections to students’ own lives

Holocaust education should make meaningful connections to students’ own lives, experiences and backgrounds.

The inclusion of broader Jewish history and the contributions of Jewish Australians as part of the curriculum changes is a step in the right direction.

This means Jewish history will be taught within an Australian context, helping students make better sense of these histories and their implications in today’s world.

For example, lessons could potentially highlight the Holocaust’s enduring legacies of Jewish Australians’ trauma and displacement. This could then create opportunities for dialogue with First Nations peoples and other migrant and refugee communities about how histories of violence and persecution continue to shape communities and identities in Australia.

2. Make connections between Jewish and non-Jewish Australians

Australia’s Jewish community tends to be highly concentrated in a small number of council areas. But Jews comprise a tiny minority of the Australian population overall – less than 0.5%.

This can mean most Australians don’t interact with Jewish Australians on a day-to-day basis.

The new curriculum could create opportunities for students to meet Jewish Australians from diverse backgrounds and to understand them as real-life people.

3. Teacher training

If teaching the Holocaust is compulsory, training to teach it should be compulsory, too. For the new resources to make a difference, teachers will need the time, training and school-wide backing to use them well.

Teachers should also be provided with more direct guidance on how to talk about October 7 and Gaza with students in lessons.

Curriculum can’t address antisemitism alone

Research on antisemitism in schools is limited. But we know teachers have witnessed many incidents of antisemitic bullying and exclusion in recent years.

However, incidents of antisemitism in schools should be addressed proactively through schools’ safeguarding policies, not curriculum teaching alone.

We also cannot do this well without considering the online space. For example, online material can expose young people to large amounts of Holocaust-related content, including Holocaust denial and distortion. This perpetuates historical inaccuracies and antisemitic narratives and creates further challenges for educators.

Holocaust education has an important place in Australian schools. What remains lacking is guidance on what it can and cannot do, and what it should and should not do.