Ambassador of Israel to the Republic of Croatia, H.E. Mr. Ilan Mor, visited the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences of the University of Rijeka on Thursday, April 21, 2022. He met with the Dean, Prof. Aleksandar Mijatović, Ph.D., and the representatives of the Department of History to discuss the idea of introducing a systematic education on the Holocaust.
During his visit, Ambassador Mor had the opportunity to exchange ideas with the students, emphasizing his satisfaction that he was able to pass on knowledge about the Holocaust. Since this academic year, the Department of History offers 4 new courses dedicated to the history of the Holocaust, antisemitism, and fascism as part of the international project Claims Conference University Partnership Program. The Department of History at the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences in Rijeka thus became the only such institution in Croatia that offers courses on the Holocaust at the undergraduate and graduate levels. Cooperation with the Claims Conference puts the University of Rijeka in a group of elite universities conducting such educational programs in the field of Holocaust studies, evaluated by the leading world experts in the field.
Lovro Kralj, the coordinator of the Claims Conference University Partnership Program project, stated that this is a huge step forward for the Faculty and the University, emphasizing there is still work to be done to expand the program, and the Faculty will continue to strive to attract new projects in order to continue Holocaust education.
The Dean, Prof. Mijatović, stressed the need for this type of education to be introduced to the entire educational sector, and not only in higher education institutions, while Prof. Snježana Prijić-Samaržija, Ph.D., UNIRI Rector, deemed the Ambassador’s visit extremely important in the context of developing a center for education and research on the Holocaust, a crime against humanity, at the University of Rijeka. It is the duty of the University and the Faculty to develop democratic competencies and make Rijeka, along with Zagreb, a center of research on the Holocaust.