ANNUAL REVIEW CAPE TOWN HOLOCAUST & GENOCIDE CENTRE 2025Cover image: A guard tower stands beside the gas chamber at the former Majdanek concentration and extermination camp — a stark reminder of the systematic destruction of Jewish communities and the immeasurable loss that followed. Photographed during the 2025 Polish Study Tour organised by the Cape Town Holocaust & Genocide Centre.CONTENTS PAGE MISSION AND VISION 4 DIRECTOR’S NOTE 6 I.INNOVATING EDUCATION: New Directions in 2025 13 Kurt Landauer Youth Cup 14 Winter Seminar for Educators 16 Interactive Lesson 19 In Sacred Memory 20 Echoes of (Post) Memory 22 The Fragility of Democracy 28 Hélène Joffe Documentary Film 30 II.EDUCATION IN MOTION: Continuing Initiatives 32 High School Groups 34 Educator Training 38 Change Makers Programme42 Creative Project 44 Adult Groups 45 III.ILLUMINATING HISTORIES: Temporary Exhibitions46 IV.ENGAGING COMMUNITY: Key events54 V. ARCHIVES AND COLLECTIONS56 VI.SHAPING TOMORROW TOGETHER58 DONORS AND PARTNERS 61 MISSION VISION The Cape Town Holocaust & Genocide Centre is dedicated to creating a more caring and just society in which human rights and diversity are respected and valued. T he CTHGC serves as a memorial to the six million Jews who were killed in the Holocaust, and all victims of Nazi Germany. It works to raise awareness of genocide, with a particular focus on the Genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda. The CTHGC teaches about the consequences of prejudice, racism, antisemitism, homophobia and xenophobia, and the dangers of indifference, apathy and silence. 4 CTHGC Annual Review 2025Holocaust Survivor Jony Markman at Yom HaShoah 5 CTHGC Annual Review 2025Jakub Nowakowski Director On the cover of this year’s Annual Review, we see a guard tower standing just beyond the doorway of the gas chamber building at the former Majdanek concentration and extermination camp. The photograph, taken during our 2025 Polish Study Tour, captures a jarring contrast: the bright, clear summer sky outside, and one of the darkest places on earth within. In this building, tens of thousands of innocent men, women and children were murdered—victims of a system that sought their annihilation not for their actions, beliefs, status or even their nationality, but solely for who they were. In many ways, this kind of space—still so saturated with the horrors of the past that it reverberates with suffering long after the violence has ceased—embodies the essence of genocide sites. During our visit with a group from Cape Town in July 2025, we felt the deafening silence of the place, its overwhelming emptiness. Walking through these sites of killing and destruction, confronted directly with the void created by the Holocaust, showed us again why the work of the Cape Town Holocaust & Genocide Centre remains so urgent. For while it is painfully difficult—and indeed beyond our control—to stop violence once it erupts, it is in the long, often imperceptible processes that lead towards mass violence that our role matters. Education at the Centre is not only about facts, dates and numbers. It is 6CTHGC Annual Review 2025 Dear Friends of the Cape Town Holocaust & Genocide Centre,about examining the slow erosion of democratic values; the progressive dehumanisation of targeted groups; the manipulation of language; the normalisation of exclusion; the steady dismantling of legal and social safeguards. Our work lies in creating spaces for dialogue, encounter and learning—without ever dismissing the power of individual stories and emotions. However, our understanding of the past, whether personal or collective, is never complete. Studies in cognitive psychology reveal that remembering inherently involves selection—and inevitably, omission. Both individuals and societies reconstruct their histories to shape identities, casting themselves alternately as heroes or victims. Because memory is inherently incomplete, historians, research institutions, and centres like ours play a crucial role: they recover overlooked facts, clarify distortions, and reveal the systems that allow certain truths to be suppressed. But safeguarding memory alone is not enough. In a world where facts can suddenly lose their value and truth is contested, we must also ensure that basic definitions, historical realities, and verified evidence are clearly understood and communicated. This dual focus— on both memory and factual accuracy—strengthens our ability to educate, to resist distortion, and to uphold the integrity of history. The last two years have seen unprecedented misuse of Holocaust vocabulary—conflations, distortions and manipulations. Some of this is intended to falsify, to wound, or to undermine. Yet some may also stem from a sense of the Holocaust’s vast moral weight, what the scholar and theologian Arthur Cohen called the tremendum—an event so vast that it reshaped global consciousness, including here in Africa. Precisely because of its scale and impact, many instinctively use the Holocaust as an ultimate reference point. But we must exercise care when making comparisons. The Holocaust, like most genocides before and after, was not a territorial conflict. Its purpose was not domination, Our work lies in creating spaces for dialogue, encounter and learning—without ever dismissing the power of individual stories and emotions. “ 7CTHGC Annual Review 20258CTHGC Annual Review 2025 conversion or expulsion, though these occurred as well. Its aim was the physical eradication. Places like Majdanek—or, on another continent, the Nyange church in Rwanda—stand as stark testimonies to such totalising intent. This past year, as in the years before, our Centre has sought to bring these histories to life: the Holocaust, the Genocide Against the Tutsi in Rwanda, other acts of genocide, and oppressive systems such as the one that shaped South Africa until 1994. By studying both the parallels and the crucial differences, and by tracing the pathways that made such atrocities possible, we aim to cultivate a society capable of resisting dehumanisation, recognising the humanity of others, and safeguarding the values on which democratic life depends. In 2025 we pursued this mission through a wide range of programmes: exhibitions, teacher trainings, documentary screenings, art competitions, public conversations, youth activities and even a football tournament. In an increasingly segmented and polarised world, we worked to create spaces for interaction, for in-person communication, for understanding. In many ways, we succeeded—welcoming more school learners than in the previous year, building new partnerships, and developing what we believe was a vibrant and diverse cultural programme. And in many ways, we also failed— for we have not stopped the wars, the violence, the manipulation, or the tide of populism sweeping across societies. Yet we cannot, and must not, stop trying. This, perhaps, is our greatest achievement and our ongoing pledge: that we will continue to try. But we cannot do this work alone. We therefore wish to recognise the support we have received from all of you— through your participation, your partnership and your generous in-kind and financial contributions. Everything we have achieved, we have achieved thanks to you: the Friends of the CTHGC, its Board and Employees. The photograph on the cover of this report is a reminder of a system that was created to annihilate, but also of the responsibility we carry: to ensure that the shadows of the past do not determine the future. Together, we can help ensure that understanding, dignity and compassion take root even in places once marked by profound darkness. With gratitude and hope, Jakub Nowakowski Director The Cape Town Holocaust & Genocide CentreNext >