IHRA, ENCATE, VHEC & Terraforming Working Together For Holocaust Education

 

April, 2026 – The VHEC had the pleasure of hosting Miško Stanišić and Nevena Bajalica, co-founders of Terraforming, for a week-long exchange here in Vancouver. Made possible by a grant from the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) and the European Network for Countering Antisemitism Through Education (ENCATE), this intercultural knowledge exchange provided an opportunity for immersive learning and dialogue about best practices in our shared field.

 

Founded in 2008, Terraforming is an independent non-governmental and non-profit organization based in Novi Sad, Serbia, that develops educational programs and teaching materials related to the Holocaust. For over a decade, Miško and Nevena have worked with partners from around the world to build a thriving Holocaust memory culture, shape policy for an inclusive society and connect like-minded people and institutions across various disciplines within Serbia and abroad.

Miško and Nevena’s visit provided the opportunity to realize the complementary nature our work: Terraforming stewards important sites of atrocity and Holocaust history, while the VHEC preserves survivor testimony and supports child survivors of the Holocaust, some of whom have ties to those same regions. Our shared commitment to preserving the historical record of the Holocaust is just one of the ways our organizations combat Holocaust distortion and denial. We do this, also, through educational programs for students, educators and adults, as well as through Holocaust commemoration events for survivors, descendants and the broader public.

 

Over the course of the week, Miško and Nevena immersed themselves in our collection and educational programs, punctuating their visit with encounters across the community, including meeting Dr. Robert Krell, founding president of the VHEC, and Dr. Lauren Faulkner Rossi, professor in the History department at Simon Fraser University, as well as attending our Yom HaShoah commemorative event at Temple Sholom Synagogue.

 

 

A particularly moving moment unfolded on the final morning of our exchange during which our education team introduced Miško and Nevena to Miriam Datell, a local Holocaust survivor connected to Novi Sad. Miško and Nevana made many important connections within our community, including meeting with members of the Canadian Romani Alliance, Jewish Museum and Archives of BC and Hillel BC, and MLA Nina Krieger in Victoria. VHEC staff were inspired to learn about Miško and Nevena’s challenges, innovations and the difficult realities they face; this created a strong sense of solidarity and renewed purpose among our team.

 

Later that month, I had the honour of visiting Miško and Nevana in Serbia, starting at their offices in Novi Sad and visiting the synagogue there and meeting members of the Jewish community. As I reflect on my time spent in Serbia, I was most impressed by how the smal team at Terraforming operates with remarkable effectiveness, adaptability and international reach. They have cultivated an impressive network of international collaborators and domestic partners, allowing relational learning to serve as their theory of change. This way of operating is attributed, in no small part, to their seemingly endless adaptability, their willingness to work within the capacity of partner organizations and individuals, rather than imposing their own structures or expectations. This flexible and responsive approach enables sustainable collaboration and strengthens trust across institutions and communities.

 

Equally impressive was seeing the behind-the-scenes work Terraforming undertakes to support colleagues operating in increasingly difficult political environments. Much of this work is not public-facing or celebrated. Their focus is harm prevention: supporting educators, historians, cultural workers, as well as undertaking preservation efforts before situations deteriorate further. Their work to encourage and advocate for the preservation of sites of atrocity, including sites currently at risk, was especially moving and demonstrated the urgency of international solidarity in memory work.

 

I was able to tour several sites of Holocaust memory, starting with Subotica, a ghetto during the Second World War, and a place from where many Jews were deported to Auschwitz by Hungarian forces.

From Subotica we travelled to Belgrade and visited Staro Sajmište, a former concentration camp where Roma, Jews and Serbians were murdered. The site has been officially memorialized by the government but is in a precarious position, as commercial ventures operate in some of the camp buildings.

 

 

Spending time with the team at Terraforming in Serbia offered invaluable insight into the realities of working within a context where sites of atrocity are not always adequately protected, where historical distortion and denial remain active challenges, and where educational work connected to democratic norms faces resistance. Miško and Nevana’s openness and honesty about these realities reinforced for me the importance of international solidarity and the responsibility cultural institutions have to support one another across borders.

 

In Belgrade I was also able to visit the European Roma Institute for Arts and Culture (ERIAC), an organization with close ties to Terraforming. There I viewed the wonderful exhibition Ambivalence: Between Adoration and Rejection—The Contribution of the Roma to the Musical Heritage of Serbia (and the Region).

Holocaust remembrance work is deeply interconnected internationally, linking sites of atrocity, survivor testimony, descendants, educators, archivists and cultural workers across countries and generations. I emerged from my Serbian experience inspired to think more expansively about the role the VHEC can play globally as a project partner, memory culture practitioner and connector of survivors, descendants and Jewish communities on either side of the ocean.

Working in Vancouver can at times feel geographically isolated from many major Holocaust institutions and European memory sites. My visit to Serbia challenged that perception and demonstrated that we have the opportunity and responsibility to contribute more actively to international conversations, partnerships and forms of mutual support, particularly as democratic norms and historical truth face increasing threats in many parts of the world.