Since the signing of the Treaty of London, the Council of Europe, which emerged from the ruins of the Second World War, has defined its fundamental objectives with a view to countering the totalitarian ideologies that dominated the first half of the 20^th century and their corollaries: intolerance, separation, exclusion, hatred and discrimination, referring to the "preservation of human society and civilisation".

The values which the Council of Europe stands for: democracy, human rights and the rule of law, are part of a preventive post-Holocaust effort which guarantees the construction of a European society striving to learn to respect the equal dignity of all, thanks to, among other things, intercultural dialogue.

Since 1954, the European Cultural Convention has highlighted the importance of teaching the history of all the member States in its European dimension, in order to foster mutual understanding.

In section six of Recommendation (2001)15 on history teaching in twenty-firstcentury Europe, it is recommended that each state should devote one day in its  schools to remembrance of the Holocaust and the prevention of crimes against humanity. History has a duty of remembrance to prevent the repetition or denial of genocides and human rights violations in general.

The Council of Europe member states continue to support this work politically. For instance, in 2019, the Committee of Ministers recommended that the tangible and intangible Jewish culture and heritage should be highlighted and better understood, and it adopted Recommendation (2022)5 on passing on remembrance of the Holocaust and preventing crimes against humanity. This recommendation provided for the first time a proper working framework for all the member states on passing on the history and remembrance of the Holocaust.

The Council of Europe signed co-operation agreements with a number of remembrance institutions such as the Mémorial de la Shoah, Yad Vashem and IHRA.

Teaching and remembrance

as defined in Recommendation Rec CM (2001)15

"While emphasising the positive achievements of the twentieth century, such as the peaceful use of science towards better living conditions and the expansion of democracy and human rights, everything possible should be done in the educational sphere to prevent recurrence or denial of the devastating events that have marked this century, namely the Holocaust, genocides and other crimes against humanity, ethnic cleansing and the massive violations of human rights and of the fundamental values to which the Council of Europe is particularly committed. This should include:

• helping pupils to develop knowledge and awareness of the events – and their causes – which have cast the darkest shadows on European and world history;
• thinking about the ideologies which led to them and how to prevent any recurrence of them;
• shaping, developing and co-ordinating the relevant in-service training programmes for educational staff in the member states of the Council for Cultural Co-operation;
• facilitating access to the documentation already available on this subject, inter alia through the use of new technology, and developing a network of teaching resource centres in this field;
• implementing and monitoring implementation of the education ministers’ decision (Cracow, 2000) to designate a day in schools, chosen in the light of each country’s history, for Holocaust remembrance and for the prevention of crimes against humanity;
• developing the Council of Europe’s specific input in the education field to the Task Force for International Co-operation on Holocaust Education, Remembrance and Research."

The “Teaching Remembrance of the Holocaust and Prevention of Crimes against Humanity” programme recognises the crucial role that Holocaust education plays in preventing genocides and crimes against humanity from recurring in the light of the Holocaust as a shared European experience and the variety of groups of persons that were victimised by the Nazi regime.

Besides providing training sessions and organising conferences to raise awareness about Holocaust education among policymakers, the programme has also supported the teaching about the Holocaust in such spirit through the creation and publication of a number of resources that teachers may use for their teaching.

  More on the history of Holocaust Remembrance in the Council of Europe in "Teaching history, grounding democracy" (p. 65 to 67).