OUR MISSION

In today’s turbulent world, as in history, children are the most vulnerable victims of armed conflicts and genocidal situations. Children experience loss of family, torture, mass flight, trafficking and expulsion and are targets of abuse, sexual and other. What is to be done?
It is our claim that historians can contribute with their expertise in rehabilitating war affected children today.
It is our belief that there is an urgent need to make the post WW2 and Holocaust child rehabilitation experience, approaches and insights available to aid givers and policy makers today. Such knowledge, while not giving ready-made answers and practices, could be an immense contribution for today’s work with children in crisis. Therefore, concerted efforts should be made to research these issues and to refine and adapt the results of this research for use by policy makers and field workers today. This site shows the ‘relevance’ initiative established together by Dr Boaz Cohen, head of the Holocaust Studies Program, Western Galilee College, and Dr. Verena Buser, University of Applied Sciences Potsdam.
First pilot steps were held during 2016-2019: Three international workshops were held in London and Berlin. In these workshops, we brought together historians researching post war experience of children and their rehabilitation, with practitioners and NGO’s, working with war and Genocide affected children today. There were also several presentations with colleagues in conferences and seminars on the Relevance issue. Dr Boaz Cohen has also spoken at the International Criminal Court at the Hague.