Illustrative. Photo: Wikimedia Commons.

Four teachers from Poland and Croatia were among the participants in a selective Holocaust education fellowship that took place late last month at New York’s Columbia University.

The nearly 30 educators chosen for the 2017 Alfred Lerner Fellowship, a project of the Jewish Foundation for the Righteous (JFR), participated in a five-day intensive seminar featuring lectures by Holocaust survivors and scholars.

Most participants came from schools across the United States, but Tamara Hachulska, Ewelina Walag, Tihana Magas and Gordija Marijan traveled from Eastern and Central Europe to participate.

The 17-year-old program, named for American Jewish businessman and philanthropist Al Lerner, first began including international fellows in 2001.

Candidates for the fellowship must be English or social studies teachers with at least five years experience who teach about the Holocaust in their classrooms. Fellows also have to be nominated by one of the Holocaust education centers with which JFR partners.

“There are three main goals of our program, which include: providing teachers with graduate level courses on the Holocaust; pedagogical connections with other teachers and their curriculum so they learn what’s worked and what hasn’t; and to give them resources for the classroom,” Stanlee Stahl, JFR’s executive vice present, said in a press release.

JFR provides financial assistance to elderly and needy “Righteous Gentiles,” or non-Jews who rescued and aided Jews during the Holocaust. The organization says it is currently supporting individuals in 20 countries.