Whenever I take trainee teachers to the National Holocaust Centre and Museum, or have the chance to watch visiting school groups, I find myself struck by the powerful learning that takes place in the Journey Exhibition. You step into a small 1930s Berlin dining room, an immersive environment and you start to piece together the daily life of a Jewish boy, Leo Stein.
Leo, who is 12 years old, invites you to read his diary — a deceptively simple beginning to one of the most meaningful learning experiences that primary school pupils are exposed to and something many remember way after the visit.
Leo is not real — but his story is.
Or rather, it is composed from real testimonies, shaped from the voices of Jewish children who lived through the 1930s and 40s. This is important because primary pupils, just like their older peers, deserve access to authentic human stories, handled with the right ethical framing.
The Journey Exhibition: Immersion Without Trauma
The Journey exhibition remains the only Holocaust exhibition in Europe designed specifically for primary-aged pupils (recommended for 9+). It’s an immersive experience grounded in the belief that:
- You can teach difficult history without traumatising children. Difficult does not mean damaging. The exhibition shows that careful storytelling, thoughtful pacing, and professional facilitation allow pupils to engage seriously without distress.
- Age-appropriateness is about selection, framing, and purpose, not avoidance. Children do not need everything. They need the right material, chosen deliberately to support understanding rather than shock.
- Children can understand fairness, bullying, identity, belonging and exclusion long before they can begin to understand the horrors of genocide. These are moral and social ideas pupils already encounter in school life, stories, and friendships. The exhibition builds on what children already know emotionally and socially.
Inside the exhibition, pupils encounter Leo’s schoolroom, his family’s anxieties after the November pogrom (Kristallnacht), and his parents’ decision to put him on a Kindertransport train to England.
Crucially, there are no images of violence, no camps, and no explicit descriptions of murder. This matters. Primary-age Holocaust education should never expose children to atrocity imagery or graphic detail.
Instead, the focus is firmly on:
- Dual identity. Pupils learn that Leo sees himself as both Jewish and German, challenging simplistic ideas about identity and belonging
- Dangers of propaganda. Children see how rumours, stereotypes, and unfair narratives can spread — and how words can shape behaviour long before violence occurs.
- Refugee experiences. Leo’s journey allows pupils to explore what it means to leave home, family, and friends behind, and to make links with refugee experiences today.
- Examining the impact of choices. Pupils are encouraged to think about decisions made by individuals — parents, teachers, neighbours — and how small choices can have profound consequences.
- Understanding how people can become excluded. Exclusion is shown as a gradual process, not a sudden one, helping children to become more aware of and able to recognise warning signs in everyday life.
- The importance of critical thinking. Pupils are asked to reflect, question, and discuss rather than simply absorb information.
As the Museum puts it:
“Take a journey into one of the most dramatic periods of world history, helping you to reflect on identity, prejudice, and the impact of people’s choices as well as making meaningful links to experiences of modern day refugees today.”
And this is precisely why I believe primary pupils should learn something about the Holocaust — not everything, not the whole narrative — but a carefully curated “preparatory version,” to borrow Jerome Bruner’s (1960) useful phrase.
But Should Primary Pupils Learn About the Holocaust at All?
It’s a fair question.
And many respected voices in the field have asked it (e.g., Bhana 2012; Winstone 2017). Arguments range from:
“It’s too horrific.”
“They won’t understand it.”
“It’s emotionally risky.”
“It’s secondary territory.”
As someone who has spent a career in secondary education and ITE, I fully respect these concerns. But I would gently counter them with two observations:
- Exposure to injustice is not the same as exposure to horror.
Primary education already deals with difficult histories: the Great Fire of London, suffragettes, child labour, the Titanic. These topics involve death, danger, injustice, fear — yet we rightly teach them in age-appropriate ways.
The Holocaust is more morally complex, yes — but complexity is not a reason for omission.
- Children already meet injustice — in school, in books, in the news.
Shielding them entirely from the dynamics of prejudice and exclusion does not protect them. Instead, it risks leaving them ill-equipped to navigate the world they inhabit. Teaching them how these dynamics work — safely and responsibly — is surely a responsibility we have.
Why Stories Like Leo’s Matter
Leo is the bridge.
He gives children/pupils:
- someone of their own age to identify with
- an emotional hook, but not emotional overload
- a way into historical thinking
- a sense of human agency, not helplessness or inevitability
And because Leo’s diary is rooted in survivor testimony, pupils encounter the use of historical sources — something that can be overlooked at all levels and particularly when dealing with difficult topics where there is a tendency to ignore inquiry and revert to a very didactic approach. Through the use of snippets of testimony, they see how historians construct knowledge from fragments. They learn that history is not just what happened, but vitally how we know what happened.
The Secondary Lens: Why This Matters Later On
By Key Stage 3 and beyond, we expect pupils to grapple with complex historical ideas such as:
- Antisemitism
Understanding antisemitism requires more than knowing it exists. Pupils must learn how stereotypes are formed, how prejudice becomes normalised, and how long-standing myths can resurface in different historical and cultural contexts. - Complicity
Older pupils are asked to consider not only perpetrators and victims, but also the roles played by bystanders, institutions, and ordinary people — including the difficult question of how “doing nothing” can still have consequences. - Ideology
At secondary level, pupils explore how belief systems help people make sense of the world, and how dangerous ideas can feel emotionally attractive, logical, or even morally justified at particular moments in history. - Bureaucracy
Pupils study how modern states organise power, and how systems, rules, and paperwork can enable injustice while masking responsibility. - Genocide
Ultimately, pupils examine how these elements come together in the Holocaust, analysing causes, processes, and consequences with appropriate historical depth and rigour.
A well-structured spiral curriculum introduces their foundations gradually, revisiting ideas in developmentally appropriate ways and adding conceptual depth over time.
And Primary school is where pupils can safely and meaningfully begin this process.
At primary level, pupils can start to develop:
- Historical curiosity
Asking questions about people in the past: Who were they? What mattered to them? Why did things change? This curiosity becomes the engine for later historical enquiry. - A basic awareness of sources and evidence
Through diaries, objects, photographs, and short testimonies, pupils begin to understand that history is built from evidence — and that stories about the past come from real people and fragments of information. - Vocabulary to talk about fairness, difference, and identity
Language matters. Primary pupils can learn words like belonging, prejudice, identity, and exclusion, which later become essential tools for analysing discrimination and ideology. - Confidence in discussing sensitive topics
With careful modelling, pupils learn how to listen respectfully, ask thoughtful questions, and talk about difficult issues without fear — skills that are vital for later Holocaust study. - Empathy grounded in understanding, not pity
Rather than seeing people in the past only as victims, pupils learn to recognise them as individuals with lives, relationships, cultures, and choices. - An early awareness of Jewish culture and dual identity
Stories like Leo’s help pupils understand that Jewish identity is not defined by persecution. Children encounter Jewish life as rich, varied, and fully part of European society, long before they encounter the Holocaust as an event.
Thus, by the time pupils reach KS3, those who have encountered Leo’s story already possess a framework for deeper, more rigorous study. They are better prepared to engage critically with complex material, to recognise patterns in history, and to approach the Holocaust as a historical process rather than an incomprehensible rupture.
This is not curricular creep.
It is curricular preparation — done carefully, ethically, and with pupils’ long-term learning in mind.
Opportunities Beyond the Visit
Not every school can make the trip to the Centre in Laxton, Nottinghamshire. However, fortunately:
- the Centre delivers outreach and online sessions,
- a Journey App for Years 5–6
- The Forever Project offers short survivor‑story films and “Special Stories,” a wonderful resource built around objects that mattered to child survivors.
- Look out for opportunities for teacher development sessions hosted by the Centre and also other institutions most notably UCL Centre for Holocaust Education.
Suggested Further Reading and Professional Guidance
Holocaust Education and Pedagogy
- National Holocaust Centre and Museum (UK) – Primary resources including The Journey, The Forever Project and Special Stories
- UCL Centre for Holocaust Education – research‑informed guidance on teaching the Holocaust across key stages, including age‑appropriateness and pupil impact
- International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) – Recommendations for Teaching and Learning about the Holocaust
Jewish Life and Identity
- Jewish Museum London – resources on Jewish culture and everyday life
- BBC Bitesize – Jewish beliefs and culture (useful background for teachers)
Research on Teaching Sensitive and Controversial History
- Winstone, H. (2017). Primary Holocaust Education: Exploring the Debate. UCL Centre for Holocaust Education.
- Pettigrew, A., Foster, S. & Howson, J. (2009). Teaching about the Holocaust in English Secondary Schools: An Empirical Study of National Trends, Perspectives and Practice.
Holocaust Education Development Programme, Institute of Education, University of London. - Szejnmann, C.-C. W. & Cowan, P. (eds.) (2018). Holocaust Education in Primary Schools in the Twenty-First Century: Current Practices, Potentials and Ways Forward. Palgrave
Articles in Primary History
- Bhana, K. (2012) Is teaching about the Holocaust suitable for primary aged children? Primary History case study
- Parmar, A.(2006) As a primary school teacher have you taught about the Holocaust?
- Winstone, H. (2017) Is There a Place for The Holocaust in the Primary Curriculum?
In the Next Blog Post…
In the second part, I explore:
- what age-appropriate Holocaust teaching looks like in practice
- practical classroom strategies
- resources and do/don’t guidelines
- how to talk sensitively with parents
- how to integrate this learning into a broader primary curriculum
Additional Reference:
Bruner, J. S. (1960). The Process of Education. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press