The Holocaust. What do you know about it? I’m sure you know the basics: Scapegoating Jews, killing millions of people, concentration camps, etc. You probably know everything they teach in school, which in New Jersey, is a fair amount. You might even think that there is too much Holocaust education in this school. I’m here to tell you that this is not the case. I strongly believe that it is important now more then ever to enforce Holocaust education. 

The number of Holocaust survivors is starting to dwindle. In the past, many students have gotten first hand accounts of what it was like in the Holocaust by speakers and visitors who had been through it, but many Holocaust survivors are passing away, and therefore future students will not have the opportunity to learn secondhand the horrifying events in the Holocaust. This means that it is not the time to start being relaxed about Holocaust education. As we have seen in the past, kids are impressionable. That’s why Nazis targeted them in Germany to turn them into Nazis. So we should be making sure that they don’t believe false facts and troubling ideals. 

Furthermore, this was a genocide. Many people don’t seem to realize that one third of the Jewish population was killed, along with thousands of other people that were considered defective. 6 million Jews sounds like a lot, but it sounds like a lot more when you realize there are only 14 million Jews in the world today. Kids know about the Holocaust, of course they do, but it’s just another history lesson to them. I’ve seen Holocaust jokes and antisemitism, even in New Jersey, and I think it’s not because of malice, but rather ignorance. If we want to prevent further events like the Holocaust from happening, the future generation needs to understand the tolerance paradox. You can’t be tolerant to the intolerant because then intolerance will win. You have to be intolerant to intolerance in order to be tolerant to the innocent. Making jokes about horrific events might seem funny, but its just making light of the fact that many people tolerated murder and torture. 

The curriculum in New Jersey already includes Holocaust education, so you might be wondering why I’m even bringing this up. Well, honestly, many people don’t think Holocaust education is important. I’ve heard friends complain, and teachers kind of skip through it. I’ve had classes where we just watch The Boy in the Striped Pajamas, which is a great movie but not an accurate one. I’m Jewish, so I’ve been learning about the Holocaust since I was young. We do an in-depth unit on it every year in Hebrew school starting at a fairly young age. I’ve definitely benefited from it, so I don’t think any Holocaust education is a waste, but I know not everyone views it this way. So, no, I don’t believe that we should add more Holocaust education to the curriculum, but I do think kids and teachers should be taking it more seriously. I also think it would be beneficial for schools to take kids to go to the Holocaust museum in New York if that’s possible. It would only be one day, and kids would learn more then they ever have.