What is Neshama?

The Network of European Youth for Holocaust Remembrance (NESHAMA) was created within the framework of the European Union Strategy on Combating Antisemitism and Fostering Jewish Life (2021–2030). Inspired by a French national initiative launched in 2016, the project is supported and funded by the European Union through the CERV programme as part of its policy to promote Holocaust remembrance and combat antisemitism.

In a context where the last survivors of the Holocaust are passing away, 80 years after the liberation of the Nazi camps, NESHAMA proposes an innovative and trans-European approach to transmitting the memory of the Holocaust to younger generations. The project develops a network of young European ambassadors committed to passing on Holocaust remembrance, fostering intergenerational dialogue, promoting Jewish culture, and strengthening connections between places of remembrance across Europe.

During its first phase, NESHAMA brings together nearly 250 high school students from five European countries, each partnered for one and a half years with an institution dedicated to Holocaust remembrance in their respective country. The network gathers seven institutions — both public (Ministries of Education) and private (memorial institutions) — working together under the coordination of the Shoah Memorial (Paris, France), the lead and pioneering institution of the project.

Partner institutions include the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum (Poland), the Jewish Museum of Athens and the Greek Ministry of Education (Greece), the Jasenovac Memorial and the Croatian Ministry of Education (Croatia), Langenstein-Zwieberge Memorial (Germany), and in France the Shoah Memorial and the Memorial to the Martyrs of the Deportation.

The young ambassadors benefit from a dual training programme at local, national, and European levels. At the local level, they explore the history of the Holocaust in their own country as well as Jewish history in their region, through workshops and visits organized by partner institutions. At the European level, they participate in online collective sessions combining theoretical courses and meetings with Holocaust survivors and witnesses. Two collective in-person gatherings mark the programme: one in Paris, where ambassadors receive a diploma at the end of the first year and begin fulfilling their mission both online and on site, and a second at the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum in Poland.

NESHAMA brings together students, teachers, and memorial institutions around a shared mission: to keep the memory of the Holocaust alive and to enable younger generations to become the “witnesses of the witnesses.” By creating transnational synergies, the project highlights both the richness of Jewish history in Europe and the central European dimension of the Nazi extermination project.

Both a project and a growing network, NESHAMA aims to progressively expand in the coming years to include additional countries, with the objective of reaching all 27 Member States of the European Union by 2030. Through this expansion, the project seeks to build a vibrant European community of young ambassadors committed to Holocaust remembrance, tolerance, and the fight against antisemitism and all forms of discrimination — thereby contributing to the development of a shared European culture of remembrance and civic engagement.