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The Association of Jewish Refugees: The UK Holocaust Map

Who are they?

Founded in 1941, the Association of Jewish Refugees (AJR) has been providing outstanding social and welfare services to the UK’s population of Jewish Holocaust refugees for over 80 years.

The AJR is also one of the world’s leading Holocaust education organisations, and their stated mission is “to combat anti-semitism by supporting teaching and learning about the Holocaust.” They are the UK’s largest dedicated funder of Holocaust-related educational programmes and projects.

 

Image from the AJR website.

"We have received the most wonderful, positive feedback about the UK Holocaust Map. Colleagues from across the remembrance and education sector and members of the Jewish community have commented about how much ‘hidden’ history they have had the opportunity to discover – often right at their own doorstep."
Alex Maws Head of Educational Grants and Projects, The Association of Jewish Refugees.

What was the challenge?

As a member state of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA), the UK abides by its rules and recommendations for teaching Holocaust history.

Their 2019 guidelines on teaching this subject recommend taking a local approach as well as a macro approach to the tragedy. As Alex Maws, Head of Educational Grants and Projects noted in the map press release, this is easier in countries that were occupied directly by the Nazi regime.

He goes on the say that in Britain, this guidance is often overlooked, in large part because teachers themselves are not aware of the many local aspects they could be including in their lessons.

“The UK Holocaust Map inspires users of all ages to discover the places, personal stories and archival records which highlight that Holocaust history is – without a doubt – British history.”
The Right Honourable Lord Pickles UK Special Envoy for Post-Holocaust Issues & Co-Chair of the UK Holocaust Memorial Foundation

What was the result?

Launched in December 2021, the UK Holocaust Map currently contains 700 Records, 21 Collections, and 3 Trails.

In addition to its weekly highlighted records, the map also contains co-curated collections from several notable institutions, including the Scottish Jewish Archive Centre, the Frank Falla Archive, the Wiener Holocaust Library, and the Anne Frank Trust UK.

 

"Humap guided us through every step of the process of creating the UK Holocaust Map. They helped us to have a better understanding of our own aims and target audience."
Alex Maws Head of Educational Grants and Projects, The Association of Jewish Refugees.

Why Humap?

Our platform has empowered the AJR to pool the knowledge and expertise of several leading UK Holocaust education organisations, creating a unified resource far greater than the sum of its parts.

Moreover, as one of the primary audiences for this map is pupils and students, it is vital that the information is presented in an engaging, clickable, sharable format.

Want to know more about Humap for education? Check out our use case page.

The team at Humap were a pleasure to work with in developing the UK Holocaust Map. They had previous experience dealing with most of the challenges we encountered, so they were always ready with a workable solution. At the same time, they appreciated what was unique about our project and were eager to be involved in putting their technology to a new use.

We have received the most wonderful, positive feedback about the UK Holocaust Map. Colleagues from across the remembrance and education sector and members of the Jewish community have commented about how much ‘hidden’ history they have had the opportunity to discover – often right at their own doorstep.

Humap guided us through every step of the process of creating the UK Holocaust Map. They helped us to have a better understanding of our own aims and target audience.

Humap’s platform enabled us to create a digital resource that many different institutions can contribute their archival content to, and to for each of these partner organisations to have a visual presence on the site so that it looks visually like the collaborative project that it aims to be.

– Alex Maws, Head of Educational Grants and Projects, The Association of Jewish Refugees.

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