Martin Šmok Shares IWalks at “My Hero, Your Enemy” Conference in Czech Republic

International training consultant Martin Šmok will talk about IWalks with Andrea Petö, former USC Shoah Foundation Teaching Fellow, at the My Hero, Your Enemy international conference June 29 to July 1 in Brno, Czech Republic.

The annual conference is organized by the Institute for European Policy and its research project National Identity in Central-Eastern Europe, which is supported by International Viesgrad Fund and Deutsch-Tschechischer Zukunftsfonds grant. The research aims to develop a theoretical understanding of political parties’ communication and national identity in the Central-East Europe (CEE) countries and create educational tools against manipulating nationalistic and populist appeals in communication between political parties and the young generation.

This year, My Hero, Your Enemy will bring together scholars, NGOs, education experts and more to discuss “National Identities in Central Europe in the Light of Changing European Geopolitics 1918–1948."

Martin Šmok, USC Shoah Foundation’s international training consultant based in Czech Republic, will participate in a panel on how to teach history today using innovative teaching practices in CEE countries. The panel will be moderated by Andrea Petö, the Institute’s 2013 Teaching Fellow who teaches courses at Central European University using the Visual History Archive. The other panelists come from the Institute for the Study of Totalitarian Regimes, Gulag.cz, and the Institute for International Relations, to name a few.

On the panel, Šmok will discuss IWalk, one of USC Shoah Foundation’s newest educational programs. While walking through historic locations in Czech Republic and Hungary, educators, students and the public watch testimony clips on iPads or tablet devices in which Holocaust survivors describe their experiences in those very locations. IWalks are currently available in Czech for Brno, Vinohrady and the Radiotrhu deportation center through the Institute’s website. Hungarian educators in USC Shoah Foundation’s professional development programs have also piloted an IWalk in Budapest.