Holocaust education urgently needed as anti-vaxxers exploit the Holocaust

 

The coronavirus pandemic has made the need for Holocaust education more vital than ever as a growing number of anti-vaxxers show their complete ignorance about the horrors of the Holocaust and the 6 million Jews and 11 million people in total slaughtered by the Nazis before and during World War II by comparing vaccine passports and mandatory vaccines to the treatment of Jews during the Holocaust, including having death camp numbers burned on to their arms.
That is a completely horrifying development!
Those comparisons aren’t only reprehensible in every sense of the word, but they show a thundering lack of historical awareness on the part of those white supremacists and other ignorant people who insist on making such sickening comparisons.
For one thing, the two aren’t even remotely comparable; for another, vaccines have been mandated for decades for students in schools ….. the MMR, chicken pox and other vaccines, including against hepatitis, are all required, with exceptions only for medical and religious reasons.
So stop the intellectual dishonesty and raw bigotry of comparing mandatory COVID-19 vaccines with the Holocaust.
And it’ not only the run-of-the mill bigots doing this: the comparisons are emanating from many officials at the federal, state and local level --- which is why Holocaust education is becoming more essential than ever.

Here are two stories and a column that I did on the issue for the August 2021 edition of Jewish Rhode Island of Providence:

Links to this and the other two stories posted consecutively follow. They relate to Holocaust education efforts in Mass. and Rhode Island, a story on the view from two prominent Holocaust educators and a column on the successful Holocaust Stamps Project at the Foxboro Regional Charter School, including an interview with the project's founder, Charlotte Sheer.

Link to the two collage photos (used as an intro online):
https://www.jewishrhody.com/stories/holocaust-education-update,13524?

 

 

Link to the educators' sidebar:
https://www.jewishrhody.com/stories/educators-holocaust-education-helps-ensure-we-never-forget,13523?

 

 

Link to the main Holocaust education story:

https://www.jewishrhody.com/stories/holocaust-education-strengthened-in-ri-in-the-pipeline-in-mass,13521?


Link to my August column on Holocaust education:
https://www.jewishrhody.com/stories/the-power-of-holocaust-education,13525?

MAIN STORY

Rhode Island and Massachusetts’ efforts to make Holocaust education mandatory in their schools read like a tale of two states, as the Ocean State has just done that, while Massachusetts’ latest attempt is again making its way through the Legislature.
Rhode Island’s General Assembly, which passed a law in 2016 requiring Holocaust and genocide education, recently approved, and Gov. Daniel McKee signed, additional legislation to create a permanent commission “to promote and continually improve genocide and Holocaust education in schools,” according to a news release from the bill’s sponsors in the House and Senate, Rep. Rebecca Kislak and Sen. Gayle L. Goldin.
That commission’s job will be to implement the 2016 law.
In Massachusetts, House and Senate bills with similar purposes received a hearing in May, and await action to move to the next stage: votes in both branches after similar efforts failed during past legislative sessions.
A closer look at both states’ Holocaust education initiatives follows:
Rhode Island
Before creating the commission, explained Paula Olivieri, education coordinator at the Sandra Bornstein Holocaust Education Center at the Jewish Community Center in Providence, the 2016 law lacked an enforcement mechanism.
“The commission will oversee the law requiring Holocaust and genocide education. The hope is that it (the commission) will ensure” compliance with the (2016) law, Olivieri said.
According to the bill, “the Holocaust and Genocide Education Commission will gather and disseminate Holocaust and genocide information, work with the Department of Education to update and promote statewide Holocaust and genocide education programs and promote public awareness of issues relating to Holocaust and genocide education.”
The bill’s sponsors are encouraged by the commission’s creation.
“Given the hate and bigotry that is common in public discourse today, it is especially important to educate students about the incredible damage that prejudice and intolerance have caused throughout history,” said Goldin, whose grandparents fled Eastern Europe for Canada during the pogroms.
“The best way to ensure our future generations never repeat these actions is to teach them about the impact the Holocaust and other genocides have had in our world. Learning about our past provides perspective on current world events. It is also an opportunity for people to learn from one another about experiences of oppression,” added Goldin, D-District 3, Providence, who lost family members to the Holocaust.
Kislak, in backing the commission’s formation, cited the number of Ocean State residents affected by genocides.
“So many Rhode Islanders’ families are from communities that have been impacted by genocides. Listening to each other’s stories and learning about those diverse histories will help us see the humanity in one another and build stronger communities,” said Kislak, D-Dist. 4, Providence.
Massachusetts
Legislators in the Bay State are hopeful there will be action on House and Senate bills, which were the subject of a virtual hearing May 20 at the Statehouse by the Legislature’s Joint Committee on Education. Both genocide education bills were discussed during a more than five-hour hearing on 45 education-related bills.
Under the language in both bills, the education commissioner would set up and administer a separate fund called the Genocide Education Trust Fund to pay for Holocaust and genocide education in the state’s middle and secondary schools.
The Senate bill is sponsored by Sen. Michael J. Rodrigues, D-Westport, who represents the First Bristol and Plymouth District and the House bill is sponsored by Rep. Jeffrey N. Roy, D-Franklin, who represents the 10^th Norfolk District.
State Rep. Adam Scanlon, D-North Attleboro, who represents the 14^th Bristol District, said he favors the bill because “teaching the history of genocide is critical to creating well-informed and inclusive communities, which alone makes the bill worthy of support. It is a bipartisan bill, which also shows a commitment from many to this topic and for public education in general.” 
Scanlon explained what will happen next: the committee must decide whether to issue a favorable report to move it to a full House vote, consider it as part of a larger education bill or send it to a study committee, a move that usually means the legislation is unlikely to come up for a vote in the current session.
Another Southeastern Massachusetts legislator, state Rep. Jim Hawkins, D-Attleboro, backs the House bill and signed on as a co-sponsor.
“I am so very much in favor of this. We cannot sugarcoat our history and hope to advance as a society,” said Hawkins, who represents the Second Bristol District.
“I have read that many people don't remember, or even deny that the Holocaust happened. And if we don't talk about the Holocaust, it will be all too easy to dismiss hatred as harmless,” he said.
Holocaust education is extremely personal for state Sen. Becca Rausch, D-Needham, whose Norfolk, Bristol and Middlesex District encompasses much of the Attleboro area: her grandfather from Augsburg, Germany survived the Holocaust. She spoke passionately about the Holocaust and genocide education bill during a previous hearing on Aug. 3, 2020.
“We only combat hate with education and meaningful dialogue, and that’s what this bill does; that’s why I’m proud to stand today and support it,” she said. “I am the granddaughter of a Holocaust survivor and the vast majority of that branch of my family was completely wiped out in the Holocaust.”
Rausch also told that hearing about her emotional visit to Augsburg in 2017. “I learned a lot on that trip,” which she called an “incredibly powerful and moving experience.”
Rausch, in a phone interview, said she’s a co-sponsor of the bill this year, and is hopeful it will pass the Senate, as it did last year.
But she stressed that schools shouldn’t wait for the legislation to be approved to start teaching about the Holocaust and other genocides, urging teachers to use the resources available to them to accomplish that goal.
“It’s becoming more important that we engage” people given the resurgence of anti-Semitic incidents, she said. “I know the significance of using ‘Auschwitz’ as a football term,” as the Duxbury High team had been doing for years, in a widely-reported incident that led to the firing of the football coach at that Massachusetts school.
“The truth is that if we don’t (educate people), history is doomed to repeat itself,” she warned.
“The way to generate healing is through education,” she said.
LARRY KESSLER (larrythek65@gmail.com) is a freelance writer based in North Attleboro.