The Educational Programme of the Education Centre is intended for elementary and secondary school students, in co-operation with Yad Vashem Museum in Jerusalem, the Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington and the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam. It was compiled by Loranda Miletić of the Education and Teacher Training Agency of the Republic of Croatia and Robert Skenderović of the Croatian Institute for History in Zagreb, with the help of Jasenovac Memorial Site staff.
The Educational Programme has been aligned with the requirements of the Croatian National Educational Standard. It is intended for young people aged 13 to 18, i.e. those in their last year of elementary school and those at secondary school.
The main aim of the Educational Programme is to allow pupils to gain basic knowledge of the Second World War, the Ustasha regime, the deaths of the victims of Fascism and the Anti-Fascist resistance, then to use their skills of critical thought and independent recognition of the social processes which lead to the destruction of democratic values, and finally, to adopt positive attitudes and values concerning democracy, tolerance and non-violent forms of resolving conflict.
The basic method used is small group work, with participants working together on tasks and discussing their findings, thus enabling pupils to research, participate actively and communicate among themselves.
The Programme is divided into four phases: preparation, visiting the permanent exhibition, classroom work and the final phase. The preparation phase aims to acquaint pupils with Jasenovac Memorial Site and motivate them to take part in the programme. The visit to the exhibition is organised by working through six themes with the help of worksheets, during which pupils are put in small groups, allowing them to communicate and discuss while looking round the exhibition. Classroom work includes going over the answers to the worksheets and leads to discussion led by one of the museum’s educational staff. The final phase involves visiting the Flower Memorial by Bogdan Bogdanović, with an expert guide, in order to deepen pupils’ knowledge of Jasenovac. At the end of their visit they return to the classroom, describing the attitudes and feelings they have developed during the educational process.