Holocaust Learning

History has a habit of repeating itself. For example, in the Torah, the Hebrew Bible, there was a story of an antisemite that wanted to eliminate all the Jews: Haman. Another occurrence of this history repeating itself was during 1933-1945, when Adolf Hitler wanted to exterminate all the Jews.

I believe that schools should teach complete, valid information about the Holocaust to students. If this education doesn’t happen, there is a very great chance more antisemitic incidents will take place. With the loss of this education, there is little hope — and that is happening now. We need to educate students on the Holocaust.

What is the Holocaust, you may ask? The Holocaust was a genocide that started in Nazi Germany under the rule of Adolf Hitler. Jews, the Romani, homosexuals, people with disabilities and other groups who didn’t fit the racist Nazi ideology of the “master race, the Aryan race” were persecuted. 20 million people were murdered from the beginning of Hitler’s reign to his defeat. Six million of them were Jews, and out of those 6 million, 1.5 million were children

My family survived the Holocaust, but many didn’t. My great-grandparents escaped Europe and fled to Uruguay. However, many family members did not survive.

“In Miami there is a Holocaust memorial,” my grandmother said. “My uncle put names down for 14 close family members that were killed in the Holocaust.”

You might think that schools would teach this horrible event so it would never, ever happen again. In fact, 31 states in America do not even require Holocaust education. This means 62% of America is not educated on this genocide. I strongly feel that the whole world, not just America, should teach their students about the Holocaust. It should be a requirement.

In addition, Holocaust education will help prevent antisemitism because people will be educated about real information from credible sources rather than going to questionable information. I believe “protecting” the student from the knowledge of the Holocaust increases the chances of that kid going to untrustworthy sources for information. When students go to these sources, which are usually invalid, like social media, misinformation spreads. So why don’t all schools teach about this horrible event in history?

In the past few years, there has been an uptick of antisemitic incidents. For example, swastikas were drawn on graves in the Jewish cemetery of Quatzenheim. There have also been attacks on synagogues, where people have been killed. Recently, in 2022, there was a hostage situation at Congregation Beth Israel synagogue in Colleyville, Texas.

If you’re thinking like I am, then you must be thinking that this is completely unacceptable and should never happen again. But incidents like these keep happening. It is because of lack of education and ignorance that spread misinformation! Attackers and antisemites were probably swayed by propaganda and received their information from invalid sources.

Schools are not teaching Holocaust education because they are trying to protect children from violence. But ignoring this topic leads to potential future antisemitism and violence. Schools spend so much time learning about other parts of history without addressing an event that has affected America and the rest of the world. Why don’t schools learn about one of the most important and horrible events in history? Some schools use the excuse of the Holocaust being too disturbing to learn about. I accept this excuse for kids of younger ages but older children need to learn about it. But there are trustworthy sites where there is age-appropriate Holocaust education on a level that young kids can understand.

Furthermore, there was a test amongst people less than 40 years old — with some disturbing results. Three percent denied that the Holocaust even happened, 11% accused the Jews of starting the Holocaust and 56% remember seeing antisemitic things online.

Even when people are taught about the Holocaust, it is sometimes incomplete. That is really concerning, and it causes people to draw inaccurate conclusions for themselves.

It takes power to do what I am going to ask of you. I challenge you to stand up to antisemitism (just as simple as reporting incidents to the Anti-Defamation League or saying a few words to the perpetrator), I challenge you to learn about the Holocaust through books, newspapers, whatever you can find to stop misinformation, and I challenge you to educate people about the Holocaust. I challenge you to remember the Holocaust so that it will never happen again.