EDUCATION
History Becomes More Meaningful When We Can Encounter the People Who Lived It.
The Gens Family Project creates educational resources that bring rigorous historical research into conversation with individual human experience.
Through survivor testimony, photographs, documents, maps, film and archival evidence, learners can examine Jewish life in Lithuania, the Holocaust, Soviet occupation, displacement, memory and the restoration of democracy through the lives of those who experienced them.
Our approach encourages students to engage history as an act of inquiry: to examine evidence, confront conflicting testimony, recognize absent voices and consider how political systems shape the choices available to ordinary people.
The goal is not only to understand what happened, but to ask how we know—and why preserving that knowledge matters.
HOW WE LEARN
Learning Through Evidence.
History becomes more immediate when learners can encounter the evidence left behind. Testimony, photographs, documents, film and physical places allow students to investigate the past while considering how historical knowledge is created, preserved and interpreted.
SURVIVOR TESTIMONY
History in the First Person
Survivor testimony allows learners to encounter history through individual experience. Personal accounts reveal not only what happened, but how people understood events as they unfolded, remembered them afterward and made sense of choices made under extreme circumstances.
PRIMARY SOURCES
Reading the Evidence
Documents, photographs, letters, maps and archival records allow students to examine history directly. By comparing sources, questioning authorship and considering what survives—and what does not—learners can better understand how historical knowledge is constructed.
FILM & DOCUMENTARY
History Through Image and Voice
Film can bring together testimony, archival footage, photographs, music and historical research in a form that makes complex history accessible without sacrificing context. Our documentaries are designed to support discussion, inquiry and further research.
PLACE & FIELD RESEARCH
Learning Where History Happened
Historical places provide evidence of their own. Former ghettos, mass-grave sites, Jewish neighborhoods, cemeteries and archaeological locations allow learners to connect documentary evidence with the physical landscapes in which events occurred.
EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES
Resources for Learning and Discussion.
Our educational materials are designed to help students, teachers and general audiences work directly with testimony, archival evidence and historical interpretation.
CLASSROOM MATERIALS
Teaching Through Primary Sources
Source-based materials can help students analyze documents, photographs, testimony and historical context while developing the skills to ask questions of the evidence itself.
FILM GUIDES
From Viewing to Inquiry
Educational guides accompany selected films with historical context, discussion questions and avenues for further research, helping turn viewing into deeper investigation.
LECTURES & PRESENTATIONS
Bringing the Research Into the Room
Presentations for schools, universities, museums and community organizations connect the project’s research, films and family history with broader questions of Holocaust history, memory and democracy.
LEARNING THROUGH PLACE
The Landscape Is Part of the Evidence.
The history of Lithuanian Jewry survives not only in archives and testimony, but in the places where it unfolded.
Former ghettos, Jewish neighborhoods, cemeteries, synagogues, mass-grave sites and memorial landscapes allow learners to connect documentary evidence with physical space. Visiting and documenting these places can reveal what has survived, what has disappeared and how communities have chosen to remember—or obscure—the past.
The Gens Family Project incorporates field research into its educational work so that historical events are understood not as abstractions, but as experiences that occurred in real streets, buildings, forests and communities.
EDUCATION IN PRACTICE
Bringing the Project Into Classrooms and Communities.
The Gens Family Project works with educators, universities, museums, libraries and community organizations to bring historical research, testimony and film into spaces of learning and public discussion.
SCHOOLS & UNIVERSITIES
Teaching and Discussion
Classroom materials, guest lectures and film screenings can be adapted for secondary schools, universities and other educational settings.
MUSEUMS & LIBRARIES
Public History
Screenings, presentations and conversations provide opportunities to connect local audiences with the history of Lithuanian Jewry, the Holocaust and the experiences of survivors.
RESEARCH & PARTNERSHIPS
Working Across Institutions
The project works with historians, archives, museums, educators and descendant families whose research, collections and perspectives can deepen the historical record.
BEYOND THE TEXTBOOK
Bring This History to Your Classroom or Community.
Whether through educational materials, film screenings, lectures or public programs, the Gens Family Project helps bring historical research, testimony and evidence into spaces of learning and discussion.