TORONTO - Pope John Paul II called for the healing and purification of memories in 1994 as he looked forward to the new millennium. The 32nd annual Toronto Holocaust Education Week will try to put that healing and purification in context by concentrating on a "Culture of Memory."

Schools, parishes, libraries, synagogues, theatres and art galleries will all take part in eight days of events examining the history of the Nazi plan which killed off six million Jews in the name of a "final solution." The Toronto event is the largest annual Holocaust education undertaking in the world.

The Nov. 1 to 8 program will open with a conversation at the Royal Ontario Museum between authors Nathan Englander and Sara Horowitz about how literature has dealt with the Holocaust, 7:30 p.m., Nov. 1. Englander is author of a short story collection called What We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank and Horowitz teaches a course at Toronto's York University called "Imagining Anne Frank: The Girl, the Diary, the Afterlives."  

The closing night will feature the Artists of the Royal Conservatory ARC Ensemble performing music by composers who survived the death camps. The Nov. 8 performance at the Beth Tzedec Congregation synagogue will close with a candlelight commemoration of the 74th anniversary of Kristallnacht and Canadian war veterans honouring Remembrance Day.

Other notable events include a lecture by Polish theologian and sociologist Zbigniew Nosowski on efforts of the Polish Church to promote interest in Poland's Jewish roots and Polish Catholics who restore Jewish cemeteries at the University of St. Michael's College Nov. 7.

Reinhold Boschki, a University of Bonn professor of education and advisor to the German conference of Catholic bishops, speaks about the future of Holocaust education at Kehillat Shaarei Torah Nov. 7.

Sr. Audrey Gerwing will moderate a discussion following a screening of The Ninth Day, a film about Abbe Henri Kremer on a nine-day leave from the Dachau concentration camp at St. Gabriel of the Sorrowful Virgin Church Nov. 7.

The complete program can be downloaded at http://holocaustcentre.com. Most events are free.