Faculty tour the US Holocaust Memorial Museum during the Mass Atrocity Education Workshop.
The Mass Atrocity Education Workshop (MAEW) invites military academy instructors to discuss new scholarship and explore how they can include content about the Holocaust, genocide, and atrocity prevention into their courses for officers-in-training. Co-hosted with West Point’s Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies and held at the Museum, the MAEW includes representation from four military academies: the US Naval Academy, the US Air Force Academy, the US Military Academy at West Point, and the US Coast Guard Academy. The instructors (and the courses they teach) represent a broad array of disciplines including military arts, economics, geography, character/leadership, political science, mathematics, sociology, and law.
The program is building a cadre of instructors attune to the issues of the Holocaust and genocide and conscious about ensuring officers-in-training have the tools and content knowledge to think about how the Holocaust could have occurred and how we might work against the trends that make genocide possible today.
“Having witnessed atrocities first hand over the last 15 years, the work you are doing is so tremendously important. It cannot be overstated.”
–Former West Point Superintendent
Workshop Outcomes
Implementation of an annual course on the Holocaust and genocide at the US Naval Academy
Creation of the case study Ordinary Soldiers: A Lesson in Law, Ethics, and Leadership (PDF)
Institutional support at each academy for the student-driven Joint Service Academy Mass Atrocity Prevention Symposium
Student development of an early warning app in conjunction with the Museum’s Early Warning Project
Senior thesis projects
Previous Topics of Study
Previous workshops have explored the following topics in relation to mass atrocity: early warning and the process of genocide, gender dynamics and sexualized violence, human behavior, the role of economics, multi-agency/multidisciplinary tools for prevention, geo-spatial information sciences, and professional responsibility (character development).
Contact Us
For more information, please contact CivicandDefense@ushmm.org.
This Section
The Museum tailors programs to groups and professions for whom the lessons of the Holocaust are especially relevant.