Iannis Roder teaches history and geography at a middle school in Seine-Saint Denis. He is responsible for training at the Mémorial de la Shoah, and director of the educational observatory at the Jean Jaurès foundation.
The paradox is striking: never has the Shoah been taught as much as it is today, and yet anti-Semitism has never been so virulent since World War II.
Anti-Semitism and its corollary, conspiracy theories, have made a comeback, in particular on social networks, where dubious comparisons and the most overused anti-Semitic clichés abound. While there is henceforth talk of “overflowing memorials,” 12 Jews were killed on French soil between 2006 and 2015, including children.
With this book, Iannis Roder offers a new way of teaching the Shoah. He reveals the need to abandon a moral and compassionate history, centered on the suffering of Jews, and develop a political history that analyzes the triggers that led to the Final Solution and reveals the characteristics of the genocidal process.
What are the characteristics of a well-thought-out history of genocides? Can we forego the testimony of survivors? How does one become a torturer?