Naomi Kaplan Warren's Legacy of Hope: Ten Years of Education for Prevention

Each year on September 1, we honor the birthday of Holocaust survivor Naomi Kaplan Warren. This year holds special meaning: it marks the tenth anniversary of the Auschwitz Institute’s Educational Policies Program (EPP), the fifth year since it was renamed the Warren Educational Policies Program (WEPP) in Naomi’s honor, and what would have been her 105th birthday.

Since its launch in 2016, WEPP has been at the forefront of shaping the Auschwitz Institute’s educational approach to atrocity prevention. Inspired by Naomi’s enduring legacy, the program has reached more than 12,500 teachers and an estimated 375,000 students across three continents—demonstrating how education can serve as a foundation for resilience, hope, and the prevention of future violence.

A Decade of Impact

Over the past ten years, WEPP has advanced education for prevention in diverse contexts, always in partnership with local educators, civil society organizations, and institutions:

• In Bosnia and Herzegovina, the program launched in 2024 the Education for Democracy project in partnership with the Center for Peacebuilding and with support from the Swedish Postcode Foundation. The initiative promotes participatory strategies that equip young people with the knowledge, values, and skills needed to counter hate speech and discrimination.

• In Brazil, WEPP continues implementing the Citizenship and Democracy in School project, launched in 2016 in partnership with the Ministry of Human Rights and Citizenship and the Federal Prosecutor’s Office for Citizens’ Rights. Since 2018, the project has expanded to 17 federal units. In 2024, the Auschwitz Institute signed an MoU with Brazil’s Ministry of Education to integrate the teacher training into the national AVAMEC platform as part of the Escola que Protege program. To date, the initiative has trained 11,200 educators and reached an estimated 350,000 students.

If you are interested in learning more about the Citizenship and Democracy in School project, you can watch the video we produced in 2019:

• In El Salvador, in collaboration with the Ombudsman’s Office and the Ministry of Education, WEPP developed between 2016 and 2021 a three-booklet Educational Toolkit and an online training course for teachers to promote democratic citizenship, historical memory, and a culture of peace in schools and youth spaces.

• Research: Since 2024, the WEPP has partnered with NYU Law School’s Center for Human Rights and Global Justice on the Prevention Project, collaborating with international experts to develop actionable content for a comprehensive framework to prevent mass human rights violations, with particular attention to the role of education in fostering rights-claiming. Earlier, in 2021, the program co-led the Democratic Education Requires Imagination project with Protection Approaches, which brought together 25 global experts to produce a practical, action-oriented report on the subject.

• Global Partnerships: Over the past decade, WEPP has actively collaborated with the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance, and UNESCO. Its contributions include supporting UNESCO’s global work on preventing hate speech through education, with activities in Costa Rica, Nepal, and Kenya. WEPP is also a founding and active member of the global Rewind Network, which works to connect education, history, memory, and democratic resilience.

Looking Ahead

Ten years provide a moment to celebrate progress—and to look ahead. In the coming years, WEPP aims to continue its work in Brazil and Bosnia. Building on the recently signed MoU with the Ministry of Education of Colombia, the program is exploring the development of a curriculum and teacher training initiative to address stigmatization in classrooms in some of the country’s most affected regions by the conflict. In partnership with Lingva Lexa, WEPP is also preparing a project in Ukraine that will provide young people with training and tools to design and implement locally based projects that foster trust within their communities.

Additional initiatives currently underway include:

• Designing and piloting an innovative curriculum for a high-level seminar in Auschwitz with 25 representatives of Ministries of Education, focused on advancing a shared vision of education as a force for preventing hate and building a more just and hopeful future.

• Developing a global educator training program aimed at creatively countering the alarming rise of hate speech worldwide.

Honoring Naomi’s Legacy

Naomi Kaplan Warren, born in Poland in 1920, survived Auschwitz, Ravensbrück, and Bergen-Belsen before rebuilding her life in the United States. A successful businesswoman, devoted mother, grandmother, and great-grandmother, Naomi dedicated her later years to sharing her story with young people, especially teachers. For her, education was the key to ensuring that others would never suffer what she endured. Her resilience, compassion, and commitment to hope continue to inspire the work of WEPP today.

Support Us

In today’s world, hate speech, racism, and misinformation are spreading at alarming rates, threatening communities globally. These trends don’t just undermine democratic values—they also place immense pressure on schools and teachers, who are struggling to manage divided classrooms marked by a growing lack of trust. This makes WEPP’s work more vital than ever, as the program equips teachers and students with essential tools to confront these challenges and helps educators transform their classrooms into spaces of dialogue, respect, and resilience.

Following in Naomi’s footsteps, WEPP continues to ensure that education serves as a powerful defense against extremism and a force for dignity, empathy, and human rights—empowering young people to resist division and lay the groundwork for more inclusive and peaceful societies.

We invite you to honor Naomi’s legacy by helping us reach more teachers and students around the world. To support the Warren Educational Policies Program on its anniversary, please click here.

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For more information, please contact: wepp@auschwitzinstitute.org