Teaching at the museum for primary school
The Danish Jewish Museum offers educational courses for school classes in the museum's exhibitions. On this page you can explore the different themes we offer and find the course that best suits your students' subjects and interests.
Our course is designed to invite dialogue, engage and challenge the students, while at the same time the students learn about important topics within Danish Jewish history, culture, religion and traditions. From stories about the lives and destinies of Danish Jews over the centuries to exciting exhibitions about the Holocaust and its consequences.
Do you have a particular theme that you would like to explore with your students? Then we are ready to adapt our teaching course to your theme weeks or something else. Finally, contact us to book a course or if you have any questions or special requests. Write an email to info@jewmus.dk.
We always recommend booking outside normal opening hours, so you can have the museum to yourself. This gives you and the students the best peace of mind to work constructively and in-depth. In special cases, however, teaching can also be offered during opening hours.
We look forward to welcoming you to an educational and meaningful experience at the Danish Jewish Museum!
Free training course for the final training!
Try out new teaching approaches with us
At the Danish Jewish Museum, we are in the process of developing and rethinking our teaching. That is why we invite training classes to visit us free of charge and try out new teaching methods with us.
During the visit, bodily and sensory encounters with the museum's distinctive architecture form the starting point for the students' exploration of the museum's exhibitions. The students examine objects which tell about 400 years of Danish Jewish history and relate them to current issues. It can be minority life, identity formation between religion and culture across countries, as well as issues linked to how we live and have lived together in Denmark over time.
In preparation for the visit, you can watch the three short films "Lifejacket", "Lysestagen" and "Photo album", which present three about objects in the museum's magazines and exhibition.
Audience: training
Time: The course lasts 1,5 hours
fag: The course supports work with areas of competence in visual arts and history.
Booking : done by writing to: info@jewmus.dk
Please note that this is a limited offer, and courses are allocated on a first-come, first-served basis.
Visit us with the teaching team
Academic sparring for teachers and professionals
Are you going to hold a meeting in the teaching team or subject group and would you like to get out of the house and visit an external learning environment in Copenhagen?
Then you are welcome to contact us.
We welcome teaching teams to hold a meeting at the museum, and in this connection get an introduction to how the Danish Jewish Museum's exhibitions, architecture and object field can be included in your teaching.
The visit is free and is offered as part of the museum's educational project Lilmod, which is supported by the Danish Palaces and Culture Agency.
Visit us with the class's teaching team or with the subject group in, for example, history, Christian studies or visual arts.
We offer you a cup of coffee and give you an introduction to the museum and our teaching. And then we are very interested in talking to you about how you see that the museum can be relevant for the students in teaching.
Audience: Primary school teachers
Price: Free
Duration: 1-2 hours.
Booking : Contact us at info@jewmus.dk to hear more or book an appointment.
October '43
Teaching course about the Jewish Action in October 1943
"Pack your bag honey, we're going". In this teaching course, we work with the dilemmas the Danish Jews faced in October 1943, when they suddenly had to flee to Sweden. We also work with the dilemmas that a Danish Jew faced as a prisoner in KZ-Theresienstadt. The teaching process takes place in the exhibition.
Subjects: Ethical dilemmas, flight, persecution, war, antisemitism, minorities, emergency aid and humanity
Audience: The course is recommended for pre-school and upper secondary school level.
Time: The teaching courses can be booked for 1 hour and 1,5 hours.
Price: DKK 550 for one hour / DKK 650 for 1,5 hours
Booking : Write to info@jewmus.dk
Teaching in the exhibition
Choose a theme
The museum's educational objective is to create a framework for students to discuss the museum's topics on a reflective basis and with an understanding of identity issues, integration and the relationship between the Danish-Jewish minority and the surrounding Danish society in a historical context.
The museum gives an insight into 400 years of Danish-Jewish history and in our general tour we talk about the ideas behind the museum's spectacular architecture as well as the exhibitions. However, we recommend booking a course within our themes.
Exhibitions and themes: Architecture + The Gate to Denmark + Flight and Persecution in the 20th century
Audience: Max. 25 students per progress.
Time: Between an hour and an hour and a half
Language: Danish
Price: DKK 550 for one hour / DKK 650 for 1,5 hours
Booking : Write to info@jewmus.dk
Meet three very special items
The complexity and diversity of Danish Jewish history calls for a curious and nuanced approach to stories about immigration and tolerance, in a time and a world marked by change and unrest.
With the education project Lilmod, we invite primary school teachers to the museum in a dialogue about how we create relevant education at the Danish Jewish Museum.
The films are made with music by Benjamin Gustafsson from Musicbed.com, motion by Jesper Bolther from Friction and films and clips by Julie Blicher from Trojaborg Blik
Teaching in the classroom
We continuously develop teaching courses that can be carried out in the classroom. Here you can find courses that highlight everything from anti-Semitism, pride and circumcision.
We aim to cover as many subjects as possible, but history, social studies, religion and Christian studies have a natural weight in our expertise.
Read more about the individual offers on this page and download courses for teaching in the classroom.
We welcome feedback on the usability of the material.
Living testimony
Get a visit from Tove, who was a 'hidden child' during the war
More than 100 children were left behind in Denmark during the Second World War because the parents feared for the children's safety during the dangerous flight across the strait to Sweden. The children instead become 'hidden children' with families around Denmark. The children often lived under false identities and were separated from their parents for years. When Tove Udsholt's mother flees to Sweden, Tove becomes one of them.
Tove is a living testimony to the Holocaust, and she is a firebrand in communicating the great interpersonal consequences of the war. Tove goes out to elementary schools and high schools and shares her experiences of being a hidden child in Denmark during the war.
Hearing about the hidden children can give school classes a powerful insight into human courage, the emotional costs of war, and what it's like to find one's own identity in a world in chaos.
The visit is free, but the school reserves the cost of transport for Tove. If you would like to invite Tove to visit your class, contact us at info@jewmus.dk.
fag: Especially history and social studies
Audience: Education and high school level
Tove's story: https://folkedrab.dk/temaer/oktober-43-flugten-til-sverige/film-om-flugten-til-sverige/gemt-barn
Further reading on 'hidden children': https://o.dev.folkedrab-2022.omega04.oitudv.dk/temaer/oktober-43-flugten-til-sverige/artikler-om-oktober-43/gemte-joediske-boern-danmark
Voices in the silence
Animated film and educational material about October 1943
Voices in the Silence is a website with educational material that can be used in conjunction with the animated film of the same name. The film lasts 18 minutes and is about the then 14-year-old Bent Melchior and his family's escape to Sweden in October 1943. Together with the teaching material, the film invites debate, which must help prevent history from repeating itself.
The film and the new teaching material can create and inspire debate about the values that were expressed in the present and why it is important to discuss them today.
Humanity in Action has produced the film, while the associated educational material has been developed by the Ghetto Fighter House Museum with the Danish Jewish Museum as historical consultants. The Danish version of the material is being prepared.
The material has been developed with support from the Danish Agency for Palaces and Culture, the Danish Embassy in Tel Aviv and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Read more here.
Subjects: October 1943, Citizenship, Escape, Persecution, Ethics and Morality, Responsibility
Material: The teaching material is a combination of independent tasks, investigations and guided discussions that encourage students to reflect on their own experiences and to explore alternative ways of thinking.
Audience: The target group is secondary school and upper secondary school. Both films and teaching material are freely available on the website.
The stumbling block
Student material and teacher guidance
The stumbling blocks bring the past into the present as small golden memorials that tell an important story. They are laid to commemorate the victims of the Holocaust and Nazism. Historiens Hus in Odense has developed an app that supports the dissemination of stumbling blocks. The Danish Jewish Museum has developed content for the stones dealing with the Jewish victims, which are primarily located in inner Copenhagen and the metropolitan area.
In this course, students will be introduced to a number of the human consequences that war brings with it, especially for vulnerable groups, primarily due to ethnicity or social status, such as refugees.
Subject: The course supports the students' understanding of commemorative culture, source criticism and work with the historical canon's point about teaching in "The Holocaust, the Jewish Action and the August Uprising in 1943".
fag: History and social studies
Audience: Teaching material for the oldest elementary school classes and upper secondary school
Download:
- Teacher's guide for upper secondary school
- Teacher's guide for elementary school
- Student guidance - an introduction
- Student material - Indre By, Copenhagen
- Student material - Brokvarterene, Frederiksberg and Amager
- Student material - Greater Copenhagen and Kolding
