Power of Place: 2026 European Summer Institute for Holocaust Educators is an experiential professional development for teachers where learning unfolds as they tour historical sites across Europe in order to transform their understanding of the Holocaust, WWII, antisemitism, and Jewish life today. Power of Place is planned and co-led by Humanus Network on behalf of JCRC and generously supported by the Minnesota Vikings, the Tankenoff Families Foundation, Allianz of America Corporation and MINNE (Minnesota Norway Education Israel & Holocaust Fellowship).

by Scott Noet, Owatonna Middle School (Owatonna, Minnesota) | July 2, 2026

Who would have thought that snippets of conversations heard whilst queueing at Amsterdam’s Schiphol, or “ship hell” in English, would function as a springboard into deep waters?

“What are you taking home with you?” “What do I declare?” gave me plenty to chew on as I wondered if I’d make my gate in time for loading. I know I am leaving with more questions than answers.

I felt the constriction commercial concerns surrounding the Anne Frank (AF) House, but the fine folks there are really focused on keeping the main thing, the main thing. The powerful and profound simplicity of AF’s words cut through any tangential tourist traps – folks are going to holiday and history as they choose. I don’t believe in “AF or,” but instead, “AF and.” Educators can be “AF af” while also creating a space and powerful place to platform other young diarists with multiple perspectives who may have experienced the Holocaust in a ghetto or hiding under a barn.

To that point, the chance to view the diary of Ilya Gerber, written while in the Kovno ghetto, was an unexpectedly intense body blow in that the diary was extraordinary in its ordinariness and remarkable in its unremarkable-ness. With the colored pencil hearts and initials of his crush scribed in the margins, any one of the kids in my classes could have a notebook that looks and, in some ways, reads like it. The ups and downs of teen angst and relationships, school etc., the highs of hope and the depths of despair, coupled with the ever present looming threat to his way of life and his very existence.

There is no question that as a result of this seminar the theme of young people as reliable witnesses to history will become an even larger theme in my classes. My students will benefit from reading these young writers, who were true to their daily lives as they tried to be true to themselves and their own emergence as individuals. Living, not just surviving, and always becoming – while larger forces wanted them not to be at all.

I wonder about the groups and individuals pushing to ban Anne’s plaid clad pad today. What is it about the thoughts of teens from 80 years ago that they fear? Is it the audacity of these youth to continue to question and create a counter to narratives pushed about Jews, Roma and other minority groups? Are they against helping kids not to feel so isolated and to build community? Why do they want kids’ reactions placid, and agency flaccid, in a participatory democracy? Always more questions.

After locating an overhead bin I found myself seated next to quite the chatty seat mate. After answering, “kids” to the “What do you teach?” question, I answered, “I tell stories” to “Which subject?” I explained that in Yiddish & German the word for history is the same as the word for story – geshikhte/geschichte – and that it is my job to pick the stories and place them in context so the kids can make meaning from them. I said I was in Europe to not only collect more stories, but to also experience the spirit of the places where the stories took place and the people in them lived.

The Genius loci or soul of a place including the blessings, curses, hopes, desires, prayers, oaths, actions, and events that took place there. I could have stayed home and used online resources to reconstruct our Holocaust unit, but I want to be a conduit from teens of the past to current teens. Perhaps, if we really “lock in” we just might just be able to carve a little foresight out of hindsight. My seat partner had had enough at that point but I continued to think about what it costs us as a society when tales are left untold, when narratives are absent or even shaped and invented to fulfill an agenda? What happens when history is homogenized, standardized, Disney-fied, commercialized, and sterilized?

History is messy because people are messy. We have to have debates and disagreements, and sometimes the round pegs and square holes don’t match up. Are we allowed to have differing perspectives that lead to differing opinions? More questions.

Finally, to answer the question above: What “I declare” is that, to me, the “Power of Place” is actually the “Power of People in Places.”

Sure, like any teacher worth their salt, I’ll be “borrowing” activities and sources from every educator on this trip, but there is something else, something more to this educational excursion. Sure, there was some fun and frolic in the back of the bus along with trauma mixed with tears, but the fact that a couple dozen talented educators and creatives spent their time and treasure to confront some very hard history together is something exceptional.

In the nine month sprint that is the school year there is nary time for deep thought and reflection. The opportunity for educators to discuss, debate and delve deeply into content with motivated and passionate colleagues is usually something for fiction writers to imagine. Well, we managed to snatch 10 days of reality from the jaws of fiction and created a supportive community and a brave space for all to examine and process, to hear the past in the places and to once again give it voice. I was grounded in places and therefore re-grounded, and my passion to educate was stoked.

I traveled far to find what lies within. These places and people were truly powerful.