Midwest Center for Holocaust Education, Inc.

The Midwest Center for Holocaust Education seeks to:
1. Collect and preserve the testimony of Holocaust survivors.
2. Teach the lessons of the Holocaust to students in grades 7-university.
3. Engage adult learners in Holocaust history and discussions of current relevance.
4. Commemorate the experience of both survivors and victims of the Holocaust.
5. Secure financial assets to support this work.

The Midwest Center for Holocaust Education offers diverse programming to serve people of all faiths and cultures in Kansas, western Missouri and throughout the Midwest. Our programs are specially designed to serve teachers, students (primarily grades seven through university) and adult civic and community groups to meet their unique needs and learning styles. These programs include Second Generation and survivor speakers, student research contests, educator professional development courses, hosting special exhibitions, film series, lunch and learns, and presentations by noted historians and authors.

The Witnesses to the Holocaust Archive is MCHE's repository of survivor testimony - all of which if publicly available to all patrons. This collection of resources is continually updated to current media platforms and supplemented with historical resources and teaching materials to ensure it's viability as a current teaching resource.

MCHE conducts four annual commemorative events to ensure the transmission of memory of our regional survivor community. These events are an International Holocaust Remembrance Day in January, and Yom Hashoah every spring, an Operation Barbarossa commemoration in June, and a Kristallnacht commemoration in November.

The Midwest Center for Holocaust Education is the only Holocaust center in the state of Kansas and we serve the entirety of the Midwest. MCHE was founded in 1993 by Holocaust survivors Jack Mandelbaum and Isak Federman. We teach the history of the Holocaust, applying its lessons to counter indifference, intolerance, and genocide.

Jack and Isak’s founding vision was of an outreach center focusing all resources on education. Because of this, MCHE is not a museum, but rather a nimble, responsive organization that is able to adapt to the audience and their need.

Though a small staff of 4, MCHE's team includes a credentialed European Historian and an Executive Director with 20 years of experience in Holocaust education and a degree in non-profit management.

Our work is supported by a committed board of directors and the financial contributions of many Foundations and loyal members.

MCHE has built a stellar reputation in the Kansas City metro area for providing quality educational programming. On an annual basis our programs reach thousands of students, educators, and adult learners. We have also enjoyed 27 years of substantive partnerships with educational institutions like the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, the Truman Presidential Library and Museum, the Eisenhower Presidential Library and Museum, the National Archives, the National WWI Museum and over 50 other regional partners.

Having built a robust local presence, MCHE now seeks to expand our programming regionally into rural communities throughout the Midwest. Many of these communities have no Jewish presence and have limited or no formalized Holocaust education in their schools or community organizations. By building a digital-first model of programming MCHE seeks to offer access to high quality programming with no geographic boundaries.