Heidi Berger is the founder and president of The Foundation for Genocide Education (FGE) based in Montreal. She is also an award-winning video producer and former professor of communications at Concordia University, and the child of Holocaust survivors. For the past 15 years, she has visited high schools throughout Quebec and Ontario with an interactive presentation based on her late mother’s Holocaust video testimonial which examines the lessons to be learned from the Holocaust and other past and present genocides. The presentation demonstrates the power of survivor testimonials to eradicate ignorance and prejudice, develop critical thinking, and empower our youth to recognize and react to online hate.
The mission of the FGE is to ensure that the history and stages of genocide are taught to every high school student in Canada to educate them about the dangers of extremist hate and intolerance. The Foundation was the driving force behind the Quebec government’s new universal guide on teaching about genocide which has already reached over 300,000 students. Its unique school presentation program features survivors of genocide or their descendants, including those from the Holocaust as well as the Armenian, Rwandan, and First Nations communities. A project bringing together moderate voices in the Jewish and Muslim university communities called ‘Voices without Borders’ is now in development.
With the alarming rise in polarization and antisemitism in Canada, Heidi is more committed than ever to preventing ignorance and hate through education.
