Containment
of
Holocaust
Education: Lessons Unlearned
By Zarah Louis
In England, The Holocaust has been a compulsory theme in the
history curriculum since 1991 and it was the first European
country to make it so. So seriously is this taken that in
2012, the British Government (courtesy of the British
taxpayer) allocated £1.8 million into Holocaust Education
funding. The decision as what exactly should be included in
these lessons is left
to the individual establishment or
teacher, some may choose to condense it into a couple of
lessons and for others it may be spread over the course of a
few weeks and nothing detrimental can be implied towards those
that choose the former option. Assistance can also be
forthcoming from the Holocaust Educational Trust which works
“in schools, universities and in the community to raise
awareness and understanding of the Holocaust, providing
teacher training, an outreach program for schools, teaching
aids and resource material. One of our earliest achievements
was ensuring that the Holocaust formed part of the National
Curriculum for History. We continue to play a leading role in
training teachers on how best to teach the Holocaust.”
The Holocaust section of the website of the Holocaust
Education Trust includes a slideshow timeline commencing on
January 30 1933 when Hitler took power and culminating in the
1945 Nuremberg Trials. Of the 15 frames, only one touches on
any other group being affected by The Holocaust, these being
the 70,000 mentally and physically disabled people who were
deemed to be “unworthy of life”. Indeed a case has been made
by some that The Holocaust is different from the holocaust and
that the Roma and other groups that suffered the same fate in
Nazi Germany in the period up to 1945 as those of Jewish
ethnicity belong in the latter category.
The Holocaust
Education Trust adds its own stance on the above issue in its
supporting material for teachers ‘INTRODUCTION TO THE
HOLOCAUST COMMON MYTHS & MISCONCEPTIONS ‘
“The term Holocaust refers to all victims of Nazi persecution.
Although certain groups other than Jews (including Roma and
Sinti (Gypsies), people with disabilities, Soviet prisoners of
war and Polish elites) were victims of Nazi mass murder and
many others were persecuted, only Jews were targeted for
complete extermination. The Holocaust specifically describes
the murder of Europe’s Jews. This is not intended to ignore or
belittle the suffering of others but, in fact, to achieve the
opposite. Using the term ‘the Holocaust’ as a catch-all for
Nazi persecution can obscure the varying experiences of the
different victim groups.”
The remainder of that document does indeed obscure the
different non Jewish victim groups by not mentioning them
again at all!
As one of the purposes of school history is to encourage
students “to ask and answer questions of the present by
engaging with the past”, then surely the holocaust in its
broadest possible sense should be that which students become
familiar with?
Whilst it is undeniable that those of the Jewish ethnicity
formed the overwhelming majority of people who perished as a
result of Nazi Germany thinking and actions, the fact remains
that other groups including the Roma and Sinti peoples were
categorized and subsequently exterminated by exactly the same
warped thinking and legislation that saw millions of Europeans
of the Jewish ethnicity perish. Sadly, for the Roma and Sinti
peoples however, the same vigor has not been put into
recognizing their holocaust which accounted for 25 % of their
already small ethnic group being killed. As a consequence the
Roma are still discriminated against today and remain Europe’s
pariahs. This was evidenced in 2010, (and is ongoing today
which saw the forced expulsion of Roma peoples from France by
Nicolas Sarkozy’s government and as a consequence his actions
were frequently compared with Pro Nazi War time leaders in the
main stream media and earned a rebuke from the EU Justice
Commissioner, Viviane Reding. Despite the fact that France had
been occupied and suffered greatly under Nazi Germany’s rule,
no one, except Nicolas Sarkozy, appeared to take umbrage with
these parallels or feel that they were insensitive; it was
more a case of if the cap fits…
Holocaust education should not be taught merely as a series of
horrors that students need to be informed of as empty vessels
awaiting to receive a fill of prescribed knowledge. It is a
historical event which students and teachers should be able to
discuss, debate and challenge. If one of the lessons that the
holocaust should imbue in tomorrow’s generation is to learn
lessons from the past, then surely ‘never again’ should be
examined in the broadest context possible? If ‘never again’ is
simply looked at in the context of Judaism and anti Semitism
and then only retrospectively, not only does the subject do a
great disservice to the Roma and Sinti peoples, homosexuals,
mentally and physically disabled and political prisoners that
perished in the very same camps but it serves to stifle any
debate about the present or future. “How can you tell what’s
going to happen, unless you know what happened before?”
It is of course important that students are made fully aware
of the long history of anti-Semitism and how this hatred
culminated in the attempted extermination of mainland Europe’s
Jewry in the early 1940s. It is therefore vital that students
are clear as to what constituted anti Semitism pre 1940s in
order to fully grasp how pre war anti Semitism evolved. It is
evident that some people believe anti Semitism has evolved
further since 1948 and there is often a debate to be had as to
how it should be defined. For example, the controversial
London Declaration may not go far enough in its definitions
for some and yet goes too far for others. This is a debate
that should not be stifled in the classroom if we want future
generations to be vigilant in recognizing and challenging true
anti Semitism.
Students of multi cultural Britain will already understand
that it is wrong to “engage in hate against Jews” just as it
is wrong to engage in hate against any person of different
race, creed or color. Or that it is as wrong to “Hold Jews
collectively responsible for actions of the state of Israel”
as it is to hold Muslims collectively responsible for the
actions of the state of a predominantly Islamic country for
example. But students may not understand the difference
between religious Judaism and political Zionism. They may
believe it is the same or they may not have even encountered
the word Zionism in their lessons. Given how instrumental
Zionism was in planting the seed of an idea for A Jewish
homeland and how influential it remains today, this cannot be
ignored.
The London Declaration also opines that ‘Drawing comparisons
of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis’ is anti
Semitic. The very fact that this has been included in the
Declaration indicates that it is a charge frequently levied
against the Israeli government. Of course, no country would be
happy to have its policies compared to that of Nazi Germany,
but as we have seen already with Sarkozy’s administration,
where parallels can be made is it not right that they should
be, if we are to learn lessons from the past?
Students should of course be taught that not all Jews live in
Israel and that many Jews actively disagree with Israeli
Governmental policy. Moreover if they are made aware that on
Israel’s inception in 1948 it declared itself a “Jewish
State”, would it really be that inappropriate for students to
investigate whether any Israeli policies have anything
remotely in common with those of Nazi Germany in the context
of The Holocaust? This isn’t to single Israel out for any
solitary scrutiny, even though the London Declaration states
“that criticism of Israel similar to that leveled against any
other country cannot be regarded as anti-Semitic “. The
actions of the 2010 French government and any other country
where applicable, could be included also, but if the Holocaust
is essentially a Jewish tragedy as per the Holocaust
Educational Trust’s definition, then the scope would be
legitimately narrowed.
So what do the lessons of the holocaust serve to remind us of
and what should the lessons of the holocaust serve to remind
us? It is evident that The Holocaust (capital T capital H) is
fiercely guarded as an anti Jewish phenomenon and as such its
horrors should never be revisited on the Jewish people ever
again. However, most right minded people would concur that
such an atrocity should never happen again to anyone and that
where any parallels are to be found with the actions
reminiscent of Nazi Germany (whether through the passing of
restrictive or prejudicial laws to whole scale murder) they
should be identified and discussed. In fact the English
history curriculum expects nothing less “Considering the
significance of events, people and developments in their
historical context and in the present day.” Thus the reaction
recently to teaching material found on a Belgian educational
website, by offended “Jewish groups” whilst predictable, fails
to acknowledge a wider perspective.
The story was initially reported in the Belgian ‘Joods Actueel
digitale edition’ and then carried by various other similar
newspapers and lobby groups. The Jerusalem Post reported that
a lesson plan included a cartoon by Carlos Latuff (which the
JP claimed was drawn for the Belgian educational website) and
a role playing exercise which appeared in the JP having been
translated into English. However, it would appear that the
cartoon and the script were from two different lesson plans
not directly associated with the teaching of the holocaust.
The exact educational context for the two aforementioned items
cannot be ascertained in this article as they have since been
removed from the parent website.
The lesson concerning the ‘role playing exercise’ is clearly a
lesson in empathy and is also a method long employed in
British schools. A task in a 1985 British school book which
referred to the formation of the State of Israel in 1948
provided an opportunity for ‘creative writing’: “It is 1948
and you are a Jew. Say what you think of the British and
Arabs. Now pretend to be an Arab and say what you think of the
British and the Jews”. (History through Maps and Diagrams P.F
Speed 1985 Pergamon Press p57).
Being able to put yourselves in someone else’s shoes, no
matter how alien or difficult is a vital key to beginning to
understand them and building bridges. Perhaps if more of the
interwar German people had been able to do this, rather than
viewing other peoples as inferior or even sub human, then the
holocaust could have been avoided.
The Latuff cartoon is clear enough. It portrays a WW2 era Jew
and a modern day citizen of Gaza as victims. For some it is
anti Semitic for others an accurate depiction, though perhaps
exaggerated for effect as cartoons often are.
But is it
really so outrageous that it should have been withdrawn from
the Belgian educational website? Within the right teaching
environment and with context provided, this cartoon could have
made for a stimulating and informative debate. Some students
may concur that the cartoon is not an accurate reflection of
the current situation but, and perhaps this is the real fear,
students may begin to question Israeli governmental policies
in Palestine.
Simon Wiesenthal Center referred to the lessons as a ‘classic
example of Holocaust inversion in which the descendants of the
victims of the Shoah are portrayed as the new Nazis’. I would
disagree; the holocaust was a real and terrible tragedy for
all of its victims and it should be commemorated, but not by
an unquestioning obedience to their own limited narrative. As
the Gatestone Institute remarked about the Belgian educational
materials “Teachers indoctrinated with teaching material
provided by an organization that is sanctioned by the Ministry
of Education, in turn indoctrinate the school children in
their care.” Well that can work both ways. Just as today’s
German generation are far removed from the generation that
perpetrated the holocaust, so are its victims. Our present and
future generations need to be vigilant and acquire the skills
and knowledge to be able to recognize any possible
similarities in the actions of Governments today, whomever and
wherever they may be. Ensuring never again does not happen
over again would be the best legacy.
–
Zarah
Louis
contributed
PalestineChronicle.com.
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