Raging wars and genocides always include an attack on culture. The attempt to exterminate an entire population comes with a comprehensive plan. To destroy an entire nation or people, it's understood that the only way to successfully do so is to also engage in cultural erasure—the elimination of a people, their history, their teachings, their cultural memories.
For Jewish survivors of Nazi assaults in Eastern Europe, particularly in Poland, resisting cultural erasure meant ensuring education and learning continued as part of a resistance tactic. The targeting of institutions of learning and education infrastructure is typically referred to as scholasticide, a term coined to characterize the repetitive targeting of educational sites in Gaza.
Scholasticide can take many forms and each has a specific historical context. What to learn more? Click on.