Inclusion of Holocaust Education in Schools

During the 20th century, The United States started to push for the inclusion of Holocaust education in our schools with much less attention given to arguably similar tragedies, such as the Rwanda genocide. It is proven, through multiple educators’ syllabi and lesson plans, that the Holocaust is easier to teach about because, it is the most well-known and most well-documented genocide in human history, and it received a tremendous amount of media coverage. Still, teachers should teach about universal ‘genocide,’ in terms of the eradication or of people from a racial, political, or cultural group on purpose, instead of singling out one tragedy. Education plays a very important role in the prevention of genocides because it answers questions about triggers, societal impacts, and things that led up to the horrible events. Not only that, education helps to raise awareness and to fight for human rights.

Although there is a lack of good Holocaust education in the United States, the Holocaust is still overrepresented in the United States genocide education and should be substituted for a comparative genocide curriculum instead. By teaching Holocaust education specifically, instead of a comparative genocides curriculum, students are convinced that other genocides, such as the Rwanda genocide, have no significance. Similarly, by failing to teach about other genocides, students will start to think that genocide doesn’t exist outside of the Holocaust and gives the impression that acts of violence against white people are more significant than acts of violence against other minorities.

By analyzing the words ‘genocide’ and ‘holocaust’, an explanation will be given regarding how Holocaust has transitioned from a normal word to describe “a thorough destruction involving extensive loss of life, especially through the fire,” into a proper noun to describe the Nazi destruction of 6 million Jews. Then, to prove society accepts the idea that white suffrage supersedes that of minorities, I will first use the evidence of different legislation from Michigan and other states that mandate Holocaust education be taught in schools, followed by other evidence. Next, I will address the issue of the lack of Holocaust education in the United States and address how that relates to the issue of even when we do teach genocide education, the most predominant example is almost always the Holocaust. For the bulk of my argument, I will discuss how Holocaust Education compared to a Comparative Genocides curriculum is more beneficial, and less dangerous for society when teaching about genocide, while educating students that genocide is not just something that happened in the past by using different syllabi and lesson plans as an example. Lastly, I will use Johnson’s and Pennington’s “Teaching “Other” Genocides: Exploring the Intersection of Global Education and Genocide Studies,” and Totten’s “ADDRESSING THE ‘NULL CURRICULUM’: Teaching about Genocides Other than the Holocaust” will be used as a basis for proving how failing to incorporate other genocides in the curriculum results in students not recognizing genocides outside of the Holocaust.

Comparing multiple genocide events, allows students to study and analyze relationships, patterns, differences, and similarities between the genocides; tools needed to understand and prevent future genocides. According to Robert Waterson, teaching comparative genocides brings to light how the Holocaust is not a unique event in the sense that other minorities have also suffered a tragedy, instead it offers unique differences, compared to other tragedies. When looking at the Holocaust through the lens of other genocides, such as The Rwanda genocide, for example, we would understand that the Holocaust is another genocide that happened because it was allowed to happen, just like all other genocides.

When teaching about genocide we can turn it into a discussion about continuous conflicts that we still see today. Although we, meaning the United States, have not had a true documented genocide, according to the definition stated before, students can still discuss its history and its dangers of it. Studying other genocides will not only help to highlight issues that are specific to a certain group of people, but it also allows people to understand these tragic events together.

Looking at the terms “Genocide” and “Holocaust”

According to the United States Holocaust Museum, the term Genocide is defined as an “internationally recognized crime where acts are committed with the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group. ‘Genocide’ was first introduced by Raphael Lemkin, a Jewish scholar from Poland, as a result of the Nazi regime to systematically destroying European Jews. Lemkin also lost 49 relatives to the Holocaust. The term Genocide was in international law from 1944 to 1948 but became widely known and used during the 1990s, as a tool for prosecuting Jean-Paul Akayesu. Even though lawmakers refused to use the term during his years of living, it was then, that the word genocide was used to explain the ‘darkest of humanity’s inhumanity.’ Granting Lemkin originally thought of the word ‘genocide’ to persecute and interfere with the Armenian genocide, it wasn’t until 1944 that the word was really created when it was used in the indictment of national leaders of Nazi Germans. Not as a legal term, but just a descriptive term. It was used as a legal term when it applied to the Rwanda genocide in 1990.

“The Holocaust is the systematic, bureaucratic, state-sponsored persecution and murder of approximately six million Jews by the Nazi regime and its collaborators. “ In addition to the 6 million Jews that were slaughtered, 5 Million people of other minorities, including Gypsies, disabled people, Jehovah’s Witnesses, homosexuals, and many other minority groups were also slaughtered. The main motivation for this was a result of the racist ideology of Nazi Germans, especially Adolf Hitler. Before the 1960s the Jewish Tragedy hadn’t had any formal name in the United States. It wasn’t until 1978 that people started to use the word Holocaust in the film “Holocaust” which came out for the rest of the world’s usage.

Language in the United States signifies an instrument for revealing. This means, that we use language to define the world around us, but we also use it to explain how we define ourselves within the world. For example, the phrase “The Holocaust,” with a capitol T and a capitol H is well recognized in our country as the destruction of 6 million European Jews. Yet, if we regularly say the word ‘holocaust’ it can be taken as a term implying “a thorough destruction involving extensive loss of life, especially through fire “ Both terms ‘Holocaust’ with the Capitol H, and ‘Genocide’ were first associated together in 1948, when Lemkin persuaded the United Nations to approve the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crimes of Genocide.

The Lack of Holocaust Education in the United States

I’d like to start out with the distinction between Holocaust education and genocide education. According to a policy guide called Education About the Holocaust and Preventing Genocide, done by the corporation UNESCO, “ “Genocide education” deals with the phenomenon of genocide, while education about the Holocaust focuses above all on the causes and dynamics of the genocide of the Jewish people and responses to it.” 

Most of our knowledge about any genocide comes from a college education. During high school, students only study the Holocaust, and even then, never really go into depth with it. We pretty much only touch on the Holocaust, briefly, may I add, and add emphasis to the American liberation of camps and our involvement in World War II. By the time we finish that unit, we basically walk away with just a basic understanding of the events. In my opinion, we need to discuss the topic of genocide and its issues with high school students beyond just a simple understanding of what happened. Without this education, how can we ever expect future generations to prevent such tragedies. We must successfully implement healthy, meaningful teachings on genocide, mass killings, and other atrocities. If students barely know the details of the Holocaust, then their knowledge about other genocides is nonexistent.

According to a survey by the Claims Conference, 49% of the Millennial generation cannot name a single camp or ghetto from the Holocaust. This means that there is a gap between the general awareness and basic facts of the Holocaust. This study, the Holocaust Knowledge and Awareness Study, was done by Schoen Consulting, for the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany. They questioned 1350 randomly selected adults from America and recorded their responses. Some of the results consisted of: At least 31 percent of Americans believe that less than 6million Jews were killed. 50% of American adults reported that they first heard about the Holocaust at the ages between eleven and seventeen. They also reported that (59%) first heard about it at school. Lastly, 52 percent of American adults admitted that lessons about the Holocaust are mostly historically accurate but could be better.

This information says a lot about how we are educating students about the Holocaust in America. Between the years of eleven and seventeen, are the years children are in middle and high school, and with the mandated 6 hours of Holocaust, Armenian, and genocide education in Michigan, I would understand why they only have a basic understanding of the facts. These statistics also show that teachers are not putting enough effort into teaching about the Holocaust. The reason I say this is because more than half of adults in America agreed that their lessons about the Holocaust could be better. The first issue that should be addressed is the issue of only having 6 hours of education for the Holocaust, Armenian, and optionally other genocides education. Another issue is that if the requirement is at least 6 hours, that doesn’t mean that teachers are refined to the 6 hours, they can surely spend more.

America is already forgetting about the Holocaust, even with a mandated minimum time for teaching. There is just a matter of time before we forget about the rest of the tragedies. As of today, only 11 states: in the United States have some sort of law that mandates Holocaust education specifically; yet, there are fewer states that require the inclusion of other genocides in the curriculum, such as Kentucky. Unfortunately, every law is different.

Holocaust Education in the Law

There are many states that require schools to have a curriculum for Holocaust and genocide in their education. The first examination will be Michigan’s Governor’s Council for Genocide and Holocaust Education, which singles out two specific genocides, The Holocaust and Armenian Genocides. The Council was created under Public Act (PA )170 of 2016 and signed into law by the Governor on June 13, 2016. The main goal means to create strategies for training and educating schools about resources and programs needed for genocide education for students. This is done through a law being passed that requires the State Board of Education to ensure that the “academic curriculum for history in grades 8 to 12 include learning objectives concerning genocides, including but not limited to the Holocaust and the Armenian Genocide. “ Although there is an option to include other genocides in education, it is not optional to teach about the selected two that are recognized and defined by the State of Michigan. In former Governor Snyder’s 2017 annual report for the Council, which is submitted to the Speaker of the House, Senate Majority Leader, Senate and House Minority Leaders and the bill sponsor each year, it specifically states:

“The Council is hopeful that learning these lessons will inspire students to take actions against injustice, racism, intolerance, and anti-Semitism and to fight indifference to the suffering of others.”

Stating the Holocaust specifically in this bill is a blatant example of the over-representation of the Holocaust in education. In this public act, Governor Snyder, and the Council specify that education about the genocide of the Armenians and Jews as required, but fails to specify Asians or Africans, who have also experienced a genocide. It is important to realize the two arguments that can be made by this statement; But before I address either argument, we should recognize that the Nazi ideology behind the race was that the “Jews were not a religious denomination, but a dangerous non-European “race.” Governor Snyders annual report mentions the word ‘racism’ as if it justifies the mentioning of the word ‘anti-Semitism.’ Yet, in this context, ‘racism’ does not encompass everyone, because you can also be anti-black, which is also a term used in social science. Racism and anti-Semitism should never be in the same sentence together because it negates the idea that the word ‘racism’ transparently encompasses everyone and singles out the Jews specifically as if it was more worthy of emphasizing.

The second argument is that the United States associates being Jewish with a religion. Therefore, defaulting Jews to be a part of the white race. Karen Brodkin explains in her book “How Did the Jews Become White Folks?” that during her years of conforming to the American culture, she was considered white. She and her family had never thought about race, and because they had assimilated into the middle class, it was easier for them to integrate into the white culture. She points out that “By the 1920s, scientific racism sanctified the notion that real Americans were white and real whites came from northwest Europe.” Therefore, immigrants from Germany were considered white.

Because we associate being Jewish to a religion, and their race as white, that too proves my point that America privileges white suffrage. Even if we were to use the representation of Jews as a religion, the word ‘anti-Semitism’ encompasses Jews as either religion and ethnic or racial group. In fact, according to the dictionary, the definition of antisemitism is “hostility toward or discrimination against Jews as a religious, ethnic, or racial group.”