Teaching to make a Difference, supported by the Socrates Program of the European Union, started as a three-year project (1998-2001) that has brought together several of the major teacher training institutions in Europe that have worked with the travelling exhibitions of the Anne Frank House.

The general aim of this project has been to assess the various teaching materials that had been developed to support the exhibition throughout Europe, and to develop a teacher training course for European teachers that could be used in conjunction with the exhibition "Anne Frank: A History for Today", or to support other educational efforts to teach about issues relating to tolerance and intolerance, the Holocaust, Human Rights, diversity and multiculturalism. The main feature of this project has been a special website: www.teachers.nl.

The Lithuania - Latvia project
In 1999 the Anne Frank House started working with partner organisations in Latvia and Lithuania on the project "History for Today - Education to further tolerance in Lithuania and Latvia", supported by the Socrates Program of the European Union and the Matra Program of the Dutch Foreign Ministry. Beside other activities (see the section "related activities" on this website) the Anne Frank House has developed, together with its partners, this website for Lithuania and Latvia. These partner organisations are the Teacher Education Centre in Kedainiai (Lithuania) and the Latvian History Teacher's Association for the teacher training sections and the Vilna Gaon Jewish State Museum, the Lithuanian History Institute, the Centre for Civic Initiatives, the Textbook Research and Information Centre for Baltic Countries (Lithuania) and the Museum Jews in Latvia in Riga (Latvia) for the online-exhibitions.

This website
contains both: a teacher training-section (containing several units, background-information and teacher's manuals) and online-exhibitions (one about Lithuania, one about Latvia):

The teacher training section
is the core feature of the teacher training that has taken place in Latvia and Lithuania and reflects the fact that the web is increasingly becoming a resource for educators worldwide. The curriculum materials developed by the project group make extensive use of the most modern interactive methodologies and also are focused on using the world wide web as a resource and research tool. This site is related to the original Teaching to Make a Difference website (www.teachers.nl), but has been adapted to the Lithuanian and Latvian realities. There is some overlap regarding the information presented on the two websites, but much of the information is different. For instance, there are several new sections on the Latvian/Lithuanian website and some units are different.
The aims of the website are to:
· To support the schools, teachers and students that are participating in the project.
· To allow these participants the possibility of communicating with each other and keeping abreast of recent developments.
· To offer the participants, but also teachers and teacher educators in Latvia and Lithuania (and elsewhere), the possibility of downloading the materials (curriculum plus methodology) developed by the project group.

The online-exhibitions
are developed by the Anne Frank House and Lithuanian or Latvian partners.

In Lithuania the Anne Frank House-owned travelling exhibition "Anne Frank - a History for Today" has travelled through the country for one year in 1999/2000. More than 15,000 visitors came to see it at eleven presentations in eight Lithuanian towns: around 70% of the visitors were students.
The principal organisers of the project, the Anne Frank House and the Vilna Gaon Jewish State Museum decided early onto collect feedback from students and teachers. The most important findings were that most Lithuanian pupils entered the exhibition with little or no knowledge about the Holocaust, some of them have never heard of that term before. They therefore learned a lot about the story of Anne Frank and about the period she lived in (1929 - 1945). The biggest disadvantage of the Anne Frank exhibition was that it did not deal with the history of the Holocaust in Lithuania. Many students left the exhibition venue with a feeling that the terrible things they had just heard about happened far away: in Germany and in Holland. Too many did not make any connection with Lithuanian history or with contemporary issues.

As a result teenagers pose questions like "Why do we hear so much about anti-Semitism in the media?" "What about the history of Jewish Culture in Vilnius that you hear about now and then?" "What is Yiddish?" These questions are not dealt with in the Anne Frank exhibition. In September 2000 the Anne Frank House, the Vilna Gaon Jewish State Museum, the Lithuanian History Institute, the Centre for Civic Initiatives and the Textbook Research and Information Centre for Baltic Countries therefore decided to create an additional exhibition which will provide information about Jewish life and culture, Jewish/Lithuanian co-existence over the centuries, the Holocaust in Lithuania and the role of the Jewish Community and anti-Semitism nowadays.

In Latvia the exhibition "Anne Frank - a History for Today" is touring until December 2002. Here the Anne Frank House tried immediately to find a partner that would add some extra panels to the Anne Frank exhibition. The Museum Jews in Latvia in Riga decided to choose for a personal fate as well. Ms Svetlana Bogojavlenska created a short exhibition about the Latvian/Jewish girl Sheina Gram that wrote a diary as Anne Frank did. Sheina Gram's diary is completely unknown in Latvia. Also it is very short it is a moving and interesting report of an eyewitness and victim. Sheina Gram started her diary on the day the Nazi's entered Latvia and kept it until her execution 6 weeks later.

Although parts of this website will be accessible starting in January 2001, the full website will be operative in 2002. Throughout this period we welcome your comments.

Barry van Driel
Norbert Hinterleitner
Project Managers

Further information
Socrates Program of the European Union: j.e.dubbelman@annefrank.nl
Anne Frank House and its travelling exhibitions: n.hinterleitner@annefrank.nl

Teacher Education Centre in Kedainiai
Latvian History Teacher's Association
Vilna Gaon Jewish State Museum
Lithuanian History Institute
Centre for Civic Initiatives
Textbook Research and Information Centre for Baltic Countries
Museum Jews in Latvia
Socrates Program
Anne Frank House