Dealing With Cruelty Without Emotions? Sustainable Holocaust Education as a Constructive Coping With Emotions

Abstract

Abstract The following study presents an example of Holocaust education for the 21st century by evaluating the “Wannsee-conference” 80 years ago (January 20, 1942) from a religious psychological perspective of 2022. After a general survey concerning Holocaust education in Germany, it focuses on emotional regulation as a coping strategy with emotionally loaded situations, demonstrated by the conference participants but also by the trials 1946 in Nuremberg, and 1961 in Jerusalem (Eichmann). The main purpose of the study is how students 80 years later can draw benefit from evaluating the documents from a religious (psychological) perspective. The educational focus, therefore, is on reconstructing and deconstructing such strategies to develop intrapersonal, interpersonal, intra- and inter-cultural emotional competencies.