Teaching at the museum for the primary school
The Danish Jewish Museum offers educational courses for primary 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!
How do we teach the Holocaust?
Academic sparring for teachers and professionals
At the Danish Jewish Museum, we convey Danish Jewish history. The Holocaust has now become a compulsory subject to be taught in the country's public schools in history lessons.
Do you or your subject group lack inspiration for how you can work with this topic?
We are happy to offer specially adapted courses with our subject inspectors, who can share insight into how the museum teaches and works with the Holocaust as a Danish experience.
We typically set aside 2 hours for a professional meeting, which includes a tour of the museum's exhibition and a presentation of it as well as a review of our current teaching methods.
Afterwards, we invite you for a cup of coffee and a more in-depth conversation about how we can best support your teaching and hear about your thoughts and needs in the area.
We are happy to adapt the course to your areas of interest and grade level.
Price: 750 DKK.
Audience: Teachers, mediators and professionals
Booking : Write to info@jewmus.dk
October '43
The Jewish action in October 1943
Teaching process in the exhibition. "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.
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
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
Judaism
Traditions and rituals
Get a handle on Judaism's many traditions and rituals in a teaching course that also covers the many different ways in which Danish Jews throughout history have related to the religion.
Subjects: Religion, traditions, practices, faith, institutions, identity
Audience: The course is recommended for intermediate, secondary school and high school level.
Teaching material for 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.
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:
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.
A real dilemma: Ban on male circumcision up for debate
Teacher's guide, student material and conversation card
The debate about male circumcision is one of the most fraught with dilemmas. The discussion appears at regular intervals in Denmark, i.a. when in 2020 a citizens' proposal was raised about a ban on male circumcision. Every time the debate flares up, it is associated with fierce discussions and harsh accusations from both supporters and opponents of a ban. The debate about circumcision has a long history in Denmark and can, among other things, be traced all the way back to the arrival of the first Jews in Denmark in 1622, where the church, for example, used circumcision as an argument that Jews should not be allowed to stay in the country.
This teaching material delves into the dilemmas. The aim of the material is to illuminate and explore the nuances of the dilemma-filled – and often polarized – debate and to investigate whether there is a greater complexity hidden behind both the positions 'for' and 'against' a ban than it may appear in the debates . The material does not suggest a specific position on the issue, but emphasizes the nuances. The goal is to create a conversation on a nuanced and informed basis. Behind the issue of male circumcision hide complicated questions about the relationship between the individual, the state, religion, culture, parents and children: Will a ban on male circumcision deprive the children of an important religious affiliation, or is it, on the contrary, the state's protection of the individual?
The teaching material has been developed by Foreningen Åndsfrihed and the Danish Jewish Museum
Audience: Teaching material for youth education and 10th grade
Download: Student material, Teacher's material, Call card.
Home
When the Danish Jews returned home
In October 1943, 7742 Danish Jews had to flee to Sweden. The story of the escape is world-famous, but fewer people know the story of what happened to the Danish Jews upon their return to Denmark in 1945. Similarly, it is rarely illuminated what consequences the escape and deportation had for the people who fled to Sweden or were interned in a Nazi concentration camp. What was it like to come back home? How did you re-establish yourself as a Jew in Denmark? And how have you subsequently processed the experiences? Because even if you gritted your teeth, even if it was about moving on, and even if you got your life back on its feet, there were many obstacles and, above all, a lot to process. It is precisely the return home after the liberation on 4 May 1945 and the subsequent re-establishment that this course is about.
In this course, which is aimed at the teaching of history and social studies in the school's oldest classes, the students will be introduced to a number of the human consequences that war brings with it, and the importance of getting help when you are a vulnerable group. The course also opens up a discussion about society's responsibility in relation to the individual's own responsibility. Are you really free when the war is over?
The material is aimed at the teacher and contains cases and appendices that can be copied or shown to the students via smartboard.
fag: History and social studies
Audience: Education and high school level
Download: Material - Home
