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Holocaust education lacking in Quebec school textbooks, study shows
Holocaust education lacking in Quebec school
textbooks, study shows
BY KAREN SEIDMAN, GAZETTE UNIVERSITIES REPORTER
APRIL 2, 2014
Star of David fabric badges that Jews were forced to wear on the left breast of their garments. Jews were forced to cut out their
own stars and sew them on their clothes. Failure to do so meant imprisonment. The words Jew, Jude, Jood and Juif were printed
in the centre as a means of identifying the people.
Photograph by: Allen McInnis, The Gazette
Many high school students in Quebec are using history textbooks that never name or define the
Holocaust — and many may graduate without ever learning about the Holocaust because it’s not
actually a required part of the curriculum.
A new study by researchers at the Université de Montréal says that Quebec’s treatment of the
Holocaust in its high school history curriculum is superficial and incomplete, with no real reflection on
the event’s complexity.
The researchers were so disappointed in the program — the fact it is not required and how little the
material is used by Quebec teachers — that they have started to work on a teacher’s guide that
would help “fill in the curriculum gaps” and show what should be emphasized to give the subject
meaning.
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Holocaust education lacking in Quebec school textbooks, study shows
The curriculum for Quebec’s History and Citizenship Education (HCE) program mentions the
Holocaust at the end of a chapter, in a section titled “Elsewhere,” where it says “there was a
movement to deprive European Jews of their freedom and civil rights,” according to Sivane Hirsch,
one of the researchers and lead author on the study which will soon be published.
“It is more than just depriving Jews of their human rights, that’s the first problem with the official
curriculum,” Hirsch said in an interview.
The study says HCE textbooks seldom name the Holocaust and in two textbooks — History in Action
and Regards sur la société — the concept is completely absent.
A book for the Ethics and Religious Culture (ERC) program, Tisser des liens, mentions the Holocaust
only once.
“The textbook ... considers it sufficient to dedicate only one sentence to the event,” says the study.
However, said Hirsch, maybe it isn’t surprising given that the curriculum for HCE doesn’t even
dedicate a chapter to the Second World War.
But the study focused only on the Holocaust in textbooks in the Cycle One HCE program, and refers
to its treatment as being “largely absent” and lacking “a historical definition of the Holocaust and a
directed reflection on the reasons that justify teaching this event in Quebec today ...
“Not only does the program avoid naming the Holocaust, but it also offers a description of this
massive genocide organized by the Nazi state that is highly problematic, defining the Holocaust as a
‘movement,’ and the denial of the right to life for Jews as a deprivation of ‘freedom and civil rights.’ ”
Nevertheless, said Hirsch, the program does manage to address many of the critical moments of the
Holocaust — such as the Nazi ideology of the Final Solution, the Nuremberg Laws, the ghettos and
Kristallnacht (the Night of Broken Glass). She also said it’s not unusual in North America to often
have a curriculum and/or textbooks that treat the Holocaust in a superficial manner.
But she said it is more unusual to have a program that doesn’t necessarily name the Holocaust and
offers no definition of it that explains “the organized killing of a people.”
Although they spoke to only a small sampling of teachers, she said many admitted they neglect to
teach it for lack of time or expertise, knowing the subject is not included in the Education
Department’s list of subjects to be covered on ministry exams.
Alice Herscovitch, director of the Montreal Holocaust Memorial Centre, said the study highlights the
challenges facing teachers who want to teach the Holocaust.
“It was a surprise to us that there is this lack of a definition and clarity about the Holocaust, but it’s not
unusual,” said Herscovitch, who cited a study done in the U.K. about Holocaust teaching which found
many teachers struggle with it.
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Holocaust education lacking in Quebec school textbooks, study shows
She said 10,000 students a year — about half of them francophone — visit the centre, which has
developed many tools to help out teachers who want to tackle the subject.
But it seems it’s very much up to the teacher’s discretion. For example, Joan Zachariou, a social
studies consultant for the Lester B. Pearson School Board, said she believes the subject is well
covered in the board’s schools, but admitted there is no policy about overcoming the lapses in the
Quebec curriculum. Michael Cohen of the English Montreal School Board said the board makes a
significant effort to include the material in all schools, especially those without Jewish students, but
often relies on the MHMC for programming.
That’s not surprising because Hirsch said by reading the textbooks alone, students likely wouldn’t
grasp the historical significance of the Holocaust.
“How can students learn about something that isn’t named or defined?”
[email protected]
Twitter: KSeidman
*******
HIGHLIGHTS FROM THE STUDY
Here are some highlights from the study by Sivane Hirsch and Marie McAndrew, called The
Holocaust in the Textbooks and in the History and Citizenship Education Program of Quebec:
1) “This article demonstrates that the textbooks’ treatment of the Holocaust is often superficial and
partial, and prevents Quebec’s students from fully grasping the impact of this historical event on
contemporary society.”
2) “(The textbook) L’Occident discusses a longer history of concentration camps globally …
concluding that ‘in times of war, many countries override human rights and freedoms.’ Nazi
concentration camps are not even mentioned here … this presentation seems to trivialize the
practices of the Nazi regime. Admittedly, the Nazis did not invent concentration camps, but that
regime did take the use of camps to a remarkable extreme.”
3) “It is regrettable that only one textbook, History in Action, presents the Jewish resistance, by
showing a photo of ‘Jewish fighters during the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising.’ It explains that ‘Jews did not
remain passive in the face of their oppression,’ even though their weapons were of poor quality and
sometimes even homemade.”
4) “From Yesterday to Tomorrow is the only (textbook) that deals with the importance of teaching the
Holocaust today, mentioning the ‘duty to remember’ horrors as well as the people who resisted
these.”
5) “Even though the HCE textbooks fulfill the program’s requirements, and do add other important
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aspects to their treatment of the Holocaust, they also the follow the program’s example by neglecting
to clearly name or define it. … Indeed, treatment of the Holocaust in these textbooks suffers from the
absence of any clear guidelines.”
6) “Partial representations of the Holocaust risk being as problematic as false ones, for both can lead
to similar misunderstandings or encourage negative attitudes towards its victims.”
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