Why Holocaust education should be mandatory for all students
As I walked through the Holocaust memorial museum in Washington D.C., I was overwhelmed with emotions. The museum does such a great job telling the story of how antisemitism and propaganda promoting it got out of control and led to the deaths of millions of Jews. I walked around paying close attention to the objects enclosed behind glass, the real proof of such a horrifying time in history.
An old uniform of a Nazi soldier stood behind that glass, seeming to stand on its own as if it was a person. It gave me the chills. A pile of paper sat in the middle of a room. There were the pages of a Torah that had been destroyed on the night of broken glass; when Nazis provoked violence against Jews. They burned Jewish businesses, set fire to synagogues, killed hundreds of Jews, and arrested hundreds more. The Torah in the middle of the room in the museum was a symbol to me of the pure hate that was insinuated during that time.
I left that section thinking…how do people not know about this?
I continued on in the museum to look at propaganda. Pure lies were being made about Jewish people. There would be pictures of a stereotypical, exaggerated Jew. They would say to keep a look out for people like that. There would even be ways of checking. By testing your eye color, the width of your nose, the texture of your hair, and more. I found myself nervous, wondering if they would have been able to tell, if I could have been one of the victims if I were alive during this time.
I left again thinking…how could people believe this?
I kept walking through the museum, going floor by floor. Anxious, as I knew history was getting worse the more steps I walked down. A mezuzah on the wall from Poland stopped me in my tracks. I stared at it for a moment, knowing it most likely belonged to a family that did not survive the Holocaust.
I kept walking through history, and I made it to the section I was dreading the most: the concentration camps. I watched brutal videos of what soldiers found when they were discovered, I saw the infamous arch that read “Arbeit macht frei” or “Work makes one free.” Most disturbing of all was the model of how Jews were brutally murdered in the gas chambers. You would see the little clay figures arrive, get undressed, and then die. Even though the figures weren’t real, I couldn’t stop myself from looking at them as if they were. I couldn’t even get myself to take a picture to include. A break was needed, so I sat do Professor Saewitz mentioned in class how some states require Holocaust education, but I was thinking about the others. Are some schools not teaching people about this?
I thought to myself…how could people deny this?
There are people that walk around every day and don’t believe the Holocaust happened. Even with piles of evidence and real-life stories from survivors, some believe it’s a hoax. This is one of the most dangerous things for our society. Since antisemitism and pure hate are what brought Jews and other groups their terrible fate, it’s important to know the signs of it so it can’t get out of hand again. Hatred can’t be fixed this easily, I recognize that. But the teaching of the Holocaust, a major historical event, to all can help people recognize hate and feel empathy for those affected by it.
In class, we discussed the “Es” of disruption. Two of them being Education and Empathy. The Holocaust must be taught, so everyone taught can feel empathy. Empathy for those discriminated against, empathy for those killed out of hate, empathy for anyone unlike ourselves, and empathy for our fellow humans.
As I made my way out of the museum I saw “You are my witnesses Isaiah 43:10.” I was reminded that we are witnesses to this and that we must educate so generations after we continue to be witnesses. The Holocaust proves that we must never allow anything like this to happen again. No one denies the revolutionary war as a part of world history, so why the genocide of Jews and many others less than 100 years ago? Education must be mandatory everywhere, so no one is allowed to deny it. It should be impossible to.
By: Jesse Taylor
