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July 09, 2004 - Image 5

Resource type:
Text
Publication:
The Detroit Jewish News, 2004-07-09

Disclaimer: Computer generated plain text may have errors. Read more about this.

EDITOR'S NOTEBOOK

Learning. From Hate

W

e must teach public school students about the
Holocaust so the building blocks of cruelty against
the Jewish people never take form again.
Unless we spotlight the images of Hitler's "final solution to
the Jewish problem," America runs the risk of not seeing that
Europe's Jews confront what National Director Abraham
Foxman of the Anti-Defamation League calls the worst of
times since Nazi Germany.
The best way to embed the horror unleashed by Hitler into
the public psyche, and to suppress seeds of bigotry and hatred,
is for Jewish and gentile high school students to study the
Holocaust together. But such study isn't
mandatory in most districts.
The U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum
reports that the Holocaust is required study
in California, Florida, Illinois, Mississippi,
New Jersey and New York. At least 14 other
states recommend or encourage it. Michigan
has no formal Commission on Holocaust
Education, but does have many Holocaust
ROBERT A. survivors, scholars and programs.
SKLAR
Jews need to learn about Holocaust propa-
Editor
ganda and persecution to stand united
against mass aggression. But we'd be far more
effective in this pursuit if we had the support of far more
righteous gentiles than the few brave souls who
stepped up in the 1930s and '40s.
Teaching about tolerance and social justice is
good, but to do so against the backdrop of the
dynamics in Europe and America during the
German death camp era is better.
Birmingham, Berkley, Novi and West Bloomfield
are among the Oakland County school districts
with some Holocaust studies.
With parental prodding and support, the
Farmington school district, where the new
Holocaust Memorial Center is located, recently
included the "calculated and focused genocide of
Lincoln
European Jews in the Holocaust" as a key concept
in its 10th-grade social studies curriculum.
To its credit, the district has embraced diversity initiatives
over the years. In June, it helped Oakland Schools organize a
training session at the HMC for educators. As a followup, I'd
love to see HMC visits become integral to curriculum.

Future Help Needed

Like many districts, Farmington doesn't require HMC visits.
But as the home district for the world-class museum, the dis-
trict must do the right thing and find $3,200 a year so stu-
-dents in required 10th-grade history classes and in appropriate
electives can visit the HMC. Linda Stulberg, the child of a
survivor, and her husband, Bob, generously offered to cover
that cost for the 2004-2005 school year. The long-range bur-
den shouldn't rest with this Farmington Hills couple. What
about a combined field trip fee and district subsidy?
Farmington schools would be a model if they said that no
student's education is complete without a museum experience
to see how Nazi Germany renounced human rights to murder
6 million Jews and 5 million gypsies, homosexuals, illiterates,
disabled people and others deemed unworthy.
"With the alarming rise in global fanaticism, terrorism and
anti-Semitism against the backdrop of revisionist propagan-
da," the Stulbergs wrote in a letter to the Detroit Jewish News,
"the need for such programming is greater than ever."

And it is. Over the past 20 years, more than 1.7 million
public, private and religious school students have visited the
HMC, formerly in West Bloomfield. Non-public schools reg-
ularly bring groups. Funding methods vary for these schools.

Insightful Teacher

In 1973, Margaret Lincoln moved with husband Gary from
Ann Arbor to Battle Creek, where she is a library media spe-
cialist at Lakeview High. A 2002 U.S. Holocaust Memorial
Museum Mandel Fellow, she teamed with Lakeview social
studies teacher Scott Durham to create an online Holocaust
instructional unit. Last week, she earned the School Library
Media Collaborative Award for enriching Holocaust education.
In a cogent 2002 Multimedia & Internet Schools online
paper, she stressed that the Holocaust must be studied precise-
ly because it happened. She wrote: "Today's high school stu-
dents and their parents were not alive at the time of the
Holocaust. Through appropriately designed learning activities,
they can be alerted to the vigilance necessary to prevent the
reoccurrence of a similar tragedy."
Well put.
Perceptively, Lincoln explains that social studies teachers are
obligated to meet curricular objectives, to adhere to state stan-
dards and benchmarks, and to prepare students for standard-
ized tests. But many teachers, she says, have deluded them-
selves into believing there's no time in tight course
schedules to teach about the Holocaust, com-
pelling as the subject is.
Heed Lincoln's retort: "Teaching about the
Holocaust allows students to consider such issues
as indifference toward suffering, use and abuse of
power, prejudice, racism and the disintegration of
civilized values."
In a conversation on Monday, she reminded me
that the typical survivor is about 80. So each day,
we have fewer primary witnesses to speak in class-
rooms and share their story firsthand. 'As educa-
tors," Lincoln said, "we have to figure out how
these lessons can be imparted to students."
She gets it.
At the June 22 dedication of the Holocaust Memorial
Center in Farmington Hills, I thought about the scratched
lens through which we view the dark days of the not-so-dis-
tant past. The center is a poignant memorial to Hitler's vic-
tims. But we were really there, 1,000 strong, to declare,
"Never Again!"
Before the ribbon was cut, Abe Weberman, president of
Shaarit Haplaytah, an ever-dwindling group of survivors,
spoke for just 35 seconds. Still, his message was powerful.
"Our organization," he said to HMC founder and CEO
Rabbi Charles Rosenzveig, "will continue to help you in mak-
ing sure the story and lesson of the Holocaust will forever be
learned and remembered."
Dr. Guy Stern is the director of the HMC's International
Institute of the Righteous. "What we are proposing to do in
this Institute," he said, "is to find out what motivates people
of all persuasions throughout history, across borders, to d _ o the
right thing where the majority is inclined to do evil."
I hope he succeeds in his desire to attract school groups.
The Holocaust Memorial Center won't reach its full poten-
tial without the rhythm of public school students learning
what happened, and why, so they can help assure any selective
targeting of people whose only fault is that they are a minority
never happens again. ❑

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