OREGON PASSES LAW MANDATING SCHOOLS TEACH ABOUT THE HOLOCAUST
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
OREGON PASSES LAW MANDATING SCHOOLS TEACH ABOUT THE HOLOCAUST
The measure mandates the instruction in response to spikes in antisemitic incidents across the country
BY CNAAN LIPHSHIZ/JTA (Jewish Telegraph Agency), JULY 18, 2019
Polish-born Holocaust survivor Meyer Hack shows his prisoner number tattooed on his arm during a news conference at the Yad Vashem Holocaust Museum in Jerusalem June 15, 2009.. (photo credit: REUTERS)
Oregon will require its public school students to learn about the Holocaust and other genocides.
Gov. Kate Brown signed a bill on Monday initiated by a 14-year-old girl who had struck up a friendship with a 92-year-old survivor. Claire Sarnowski, from suburban Lake Oswego, met Alter Wiener four years ago when she attended one of Wiener’s talks about surviving the concentration camps. Wiener died last year after he was struck by a car.
The measure mandates the instruction in response to spikes in antisemitic incidents across the country, CNN reported Tuesday.
Beginning in the 2020-21 term, schools must provide such teaching to “prepare students to confront the immorality of the Holocaust, genocide, and other acts of mass violence and to reflect on the causes of related historical events.” Schools also must encourage cultural diversity and emphasize the importance of protecting international human rights, according to the bill.
Sarnowski told lawmakers earlier this year that Holocaust education should be required in all schools to ensure history doesn’t repeat itself.
“Learning about genocide teaches students the ramifications that come with prejudice of any kind in society,” she said.
Eleven other states require Holocaust education in schools, according to the Anti-Defamation League. Washington state’s governor signed a law in April that “strongly encourages” teaching the Holocaust.
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NEVER FORGET - where that phrase belongs, and ONLY belongs.
I have two others.
911
Pearl Harbor
both are Days that will live in imfameny
Absolutely.
In my days of schooling, This was taught quite a bit. Too bad "Modern Day" schools have been glossing over it !
Friends and I did a presentation in our history class, using " George Harrison's "Give Me Love (Give Me Peace On Earth) " in the background, as we had a slide show showing the despair, hardships and incineration pictures that went on in those camps perpetrated by the "REAL" Nazi's.
We got an "A" +++++
It is a shame that a law mandating the teaching of the Holocaust must be passed.
My generation learned about the History of this Nation - the good and the bad...before entering college.
Today, history seems to be a burr in everyone's shorts. Tear down this monument...change these words....paint over this...focus on this bad thing this Nation has done...ignore everything else.
History cannot be erased or removed.
Schools need to quit focusing on their little standardized tests and start teaching again. All of American History should be learned prior to entering college.
I'm a fan of history, but I don't know how you could teach "all" of American History.
You can't. It's impossible
Then at least choose the most important issues, and impose required reading as homework for lesser ones (with tests to make sure the students did their homework). However, some may question whether The Holocaust was American history - but it certainly is a lesson every human being should learn in order that it never be allowed to be repeated.
For those that do not cotton to print, the World at War series has an excellent section regarding the Holocaust and Final Solution.
Agreed. Maybe it's just me, but this is the first Iv'e heard of the holocaust not being taught in schools. Maybe it's because I grew up in the shadow of WWII that we all knew about it as children. How did the public school system ever stop teaching that?
I love that series (I own it). Made in the UK in the early 70's it was unique in many ways. They were wise enough to interview a lot of people on all sides of WWII before they passed away, such as the interview with Hitler's personal secretary or concentration camp survivors or German women who were raped by Russian soldiers.....everyone from all walks of life who survived the Second World War.
True but they can teach it all from beginning to present effectively in the Jr year and the same for US government in the Sr year. And they can in September each year actually teach and emphasize constitutional week.
Every public or private school should include teaching about the Holocaust as part of its modern world history curriculum.
The genocide of the Jewish people attempted by the Nazis is one of the most important stories of the 20th century and beyond.
For that matter, irrational prejuduce against Jews, often faultily based on the idea that Jews were responsible for Jesus death, is one of the most disgusting ideas ever perpetrated on the world.
Sounds fine, but I don't see anything in the story that indicates it was necessary. Has it really been a problem getting public schools in Oregon to teach the Holocaust?
At least it can prevent it from BECOMING necessary.
I agree. We should ensure that we can never ever forget. I support what Oregon did.
Good!
I grew up with the holocaust. My father was among the Army medical personnel that dealt with some liberated work camps, slave camps, and concentration camps. My father would cry over how many people he killed by giving them too much food. I grew up with screams in the night from my father's bedroom.
People who deny the holocaust are too stupid to be called stupid.
I don't think there is really any way to teach about the holocaust. It was too terrible for words.
Perhaps not a sufficiently ADEQUATE way to teach it, but that is no reason not to do the best that can be done.
Please explain. Did that happen because it is fatal to allow starved people to eat too much food too quickly - the amount needing to be increased incrimentally?
Will you not explain that equivocal comment about too much food?
There are whole host of complications. For people who are not so completely emaciated, too much or the wrong kinds of foods will cause dysentery and they will likely crap themselves to death.
People who are more completely emaciated lose the ability to digest food because the bacteria in the gut have starved. Feeding someone who is that emaciated too quickly will also drain the little remaining blood away from other organs including the brain; too much food too quickly can deprive the brain of oxygen. The stomach (and other organs) has shrunk and too much food too quickly can cause the stomach to burst. People who are that far gone do not turn blue when they die and their bodies do not decompose. They are essentially mummified before they die. Any sort of solid food would kill people who are in that condition.
God damn those Nazis. Thanks for the explanation. I feel sorry for what your father went through but thank him for trying his best.
Waffen SS in particular. The real danger is fanatics regardless of ideology.
My father may have killed hundreds but he fed and saved thousands. If anyone tried to 'thank him for his service' he'd give them a shiny new asshole. They did what had to be done, nothing more but nothing less. Gratitude is the wrong sentiment to be used for military service in that kind of war.
Vets have earned respect, give them respect. Don't be thankful for the hardships and horrors they had to endure.
Sorry if I said the wrong thing. As a Canadian, and never the right age to serve in any war, I am not that familiar with the right thing to say about military service.
Canadians stood up and did what had to be done, too. The horrors and hardships weren't any easier for Canadians.
Some of those World War II vets had to do the most unspeakable and uncivilized things imaginable because it had to be done. Hell holds no surprises for some of those vets. Personally, I can't be thankful that a soldier had to do those things. But those things had to be done, it wasn't a choice.
We now have to mandate that historical facts be presented in a history class?
Small wonder history always seems to repeat itself, hmmmmmmm.
Now, if they would pass a law mandating that the US Constitution is taught for a full year, and here in Oregon pass a law mandating the teaching of the state Constitution for 6 months at least. At least there is a petition going around to recall Kate Brown, and the Republican Party is working on having a second petition calling for her recall. (The first petition is by a grassroots group, and I forget its name). I signed it, because Kate Brown has already proven that she would go against the voters, whom rejected granting Drivers Licenses to Illegal Immigrants, by creating an Executive Order granting them Drivers Licenses as an Emergency Action. Plus, she has threatened to use Executive Power to implement Cap and Trade.
I went through grammar school & high school in the 60s to early 70s. I would characterize the presentation of American History as propaganda. The good was well presented, but the bad was heavily sanitized, usually by omission. What was actually done to the indians was sanitized, what slavery was actually like was sanitized. How and why the US interfered in other countries was largely omitted.
There were a very small number of teachers who believed we should know more. I clearly remember watching "Night and Fog". At 13, such evil was barely comprehensible. Perhaps the writers of the history books felt that we couldn't handle the whole truth, but the teacher who showed us that film proved them wrong. Holocaust denial is incomprehensible to me.