Schools 'avoid Holocaust lessons'

LewA, I couldn't agree more. It scares me to think of what happens when the survivors of "history" - the holocaust, the world wars, you name it - die. Are we at risk of losing the lessons of those events with them?

Then they should step up the teaching of how not to be offended. This is disgraceful and cowardly.

F*ck political correctness!

The vast majority of people that are alive today have a brain located insead of their head. They need to learn that they can use that brain to believe what they wish. Learning institutions should teach as much as they can, about as many topics as they can, in the time a student's education is entrusted to them, with no regard to what is offensive.

As a teacher I abhor the fact that some will shy away from this subject. In the two schools where I have taught here in Florida we spend time in both history and English classes teaching about the Holocaust. The students read Ellie Wiesel's "Night." In addition they read The Diary of Anne Frank. The discussion of the Holocaust leads talk about the situation in Darfur, the genocide in Bosnia, the slaughter of the Armenians, etc., etc. It is here that the students get to learn about the history of man's inhumanity to man. It makes them think!

trying to erase the past...

just what is going on today in China, where the name of MAO TSE-TUNG is being omitted from the text books of their high schools!!...

but again that's what most humans do, try and forget the difficult and painful times....

but we need to learn from them instead...

How cowardly! The screening of the footage of the Nuremberg Trials (not the movie, the real thing) should be mandatory in all schools.

It seems like some people think that if they don't talk about it, it'll just go away. What a disservice to everyone involved!

In the early 20th century the Turks committed their own holocaust. They murdered 1.5 million Armenians. The US congress is balking at a token bill condemning this atrocity. They are all worried about the Turks turning an unfriendly eye toward the US and our involvement in the Middle East. Most surprising of all is that Israel, of all nations, is using all of its political influence to prevent the passage of that bill for its own political expediency. The world is completely insane when it comes to genocide.

I'm more afraid of linking compassion with those who suffered/experienced Nazi atrocities to pandering to those Zionists who committed the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians - what the Palestinians called the Nakba. Ever heard of a Wolf in Sheep's clothing?

I don't want to get into a new discussion, but I suggest that xiotek check out the history of the land known as Israel. The Arab residents of the area were slaughtering the Jews for centuries and the Grand Mufti supported Hitler. In 1948 (I'm old enough to remember) it was the Arab nations that attacked Israel. It was that occasion that caused many Arab residents to choose to leave the postage stamp sized Israel. It was the Arab countries that refused to help those refugees, most especially Jordan (a new country in its own right). There were no Palistinians at that time. But none of this has to do with the teaching of the Holocaust or even genocide. War is vicious, but is not necessarily genocide. Unfortunately we currently live in a time where we are experiencing both, war and genocide.

Why "The Holocaust", specifically? And only about the Jews, is that historically correct? Is this because it's needed and used to justify Zionism, and that is somehow more important to American school students than any other genocide in history? Isn't it a tad ethnocentric to exclude all the other genocides in history and focus on the Jewish Holocaust of WWII?

Why not teach about genocide in general? The Crusades, the annihilation of "witches" in the Middle Ages in Europe, the Turkish slaughter of Armenians, the Ukrainian "Famine" (Holodomor) of 1932-33, Bosnia, Cambodia, the slave trade, the Irish potato "famine" (some historians note the food was taken away, and people were prohibited from fishing in their own waters... is that a genocide? you decide!)? Why not genocides currently happening right now in our world? Sudan, Darfur, Chechnya?

Why not teach them about what Israel is doing in Palestine TODAY with AMERICAN FUNDS, building a (prison) wall, killing kids, the environmental destruction, and no end in sight. The illegal nuclear power in the Middle East, Israel, poised to attach Iran. And we should concentrate on teaching little kids about the Holocaust.

How history is presented is always entirely political. The question is, how does the Holocaust relate to AMERICAN history, to be taught in our schools? Who decides what view, what group, which genocide? Whose politics?

It is not historically accurate, by any measure, to define the Holocaust as "the worst or biggest genocide", more people were killed in the Ukrainian Holodomor, in a shorter period of time. More Ukrainians and Poles died during WWII, by sheer numbers and by percentage of population than any other groups, why isn't that taught in American schools? (I was never taught that in public school...) Hitler had depicted Slavs as inferior human beings to be annihilated, and used as slaves, that's genocide.

The Holocaust is very well known, extremely well represented in history, the media, Hollywood. There are other important histories that are not and which should be brought to light, too. The many atrocities committed by Stalin and the communists for many many years are largely not known. Who's heard of Dzerzhinsky, Kaganovitch, Yagoda, Yezhov, and Beria? (look up on Wikipedia, for some fun genocide reading).

In the Holocaust, were Americans the victims? Did America commit those particular crimes? How does any of it relate to America and our role in history, or our current war in Iraq?

I'm shocked to learn that Israel is fighting Congress acknowledging the Armenian genocide by Turkey, because it hurts them politically...

Says it all...

>>>Political correctness has gone too far..

Avoiding the teaching of anything controversial is NOT politically correct.

Teaching exclusively about the Jewish Holocaust is in NO WAY politically correct.

Teaching about all genocides, objective history, or better yet, presenting multiple sides to history, is politically correct. Presenting a view of history as just one particular view, open to discussion and interpretation, is politically correct.

I heard of one high school American History teacher who had his students read 2 textbooks, one from the right, the other from the left point of view. I think those students learned more in that history lesson than in any other.

Let's just say that the Holocaust never happened, that it is a conspiracy made up by the Jewish community. Or lets say that the Crusades never happened, or either world wars. That humans have always gotten along. People need to know history and from both sides.