Why Holocaust Education Matters

With all the bad news crowding our social media feeds and newspapers recently, it would be understandable if a recent headline may have eluded some consumers of news. Namely, results of a survey administered to 1,350 participants revealed this week found a rapid decline in millennial knowledge regarding the Holocaust (Zauzmer, 2020).

Specifically, two-thirds of millennials could not identify Auschwitz—one of the deadliest extermination camps of the Nazi regime. Another 22 percent reportedly hadn’t heard of or weren’t sure if they knew what the Holocaust was. Notably, this number was two times lower than responses from older adults who were asked the same question.

What does it mean in our culture today, where we are seeing in present time the unfolding of massive human rights violations and threats to democracy across the globe—and along our own borders—that one of the worst atrocities of the 20th century isn’t understood, let alone recognizable to a large number of our young people? As the saying goes—those who do not understand history are doomed to repeat it.

As a Holocaust scholar and educator, I have written extensively on the importance of exposing students to this genocide. Specifically, such exposure in a higher education context, “offers meaningful pathways for students to gain insights and enhance their understanding of the world” (Aalai, 2020, p. 2). Moreover, Holocaust education isn’t just about transmitting historical knowledge about an event in the past. When done effectively, exposing students to the Holocaust offers an opportunity for them to critically engage with material that challenges their views of the world, invites them to confront the banality of evil, and to also recognize the social, cultural, political, and psychological factors that enable mass violence and genocide to happen. Those lessons are not specific to just one moment in history, and sadly, resonate in many ways for the state of our world right now.

In fact, in the work I have done interviewing students regarding their experiences with Holocaust education, there is evidence to suggest that they can even have a transformative learning experience from such exposure (Aalai, 2020). This is actually consistent with a more hopeful discovery in the recent survey that was published that may have been lost in the headlines—namely, that a whopping 93 percent of those surveyed reported that they believed all students should learn about the Holocaust in school (Zauzmer, 2020).

Such a finding is consistent with reflections I have had from my students as well—in fact, when students who did not know about the Holocaust have been exposed to it in my classes they expressed both shock and rage that they had never known about this genocide, as well as gratitude for having finally learned about it.

Exposure to the Holocaust can be compelling for students, and it opens their eyes to many complex problems that still permeate the globe today. A consistent challenge for educators is how to make an event that seems “in the past” resonant for their students right now, particularly given that so many survivors are nearing the end of their lives or have already perished. In fact, when it is reported as a positive learning experience for students, they identify exposure to survivor testimonies as being particularly impactful to their understanding of this atrocity. Thankfully, there are many resources and institutions supporting Holocaust education—may of which can be found online.

The rise of Nazism in Germany and the subsequent war that would ensue and genocide against the Jewish people puts on stark display the fragility of governments and other institutions that are meant to protect and serve its people—even in nations with a democratic foundation. In fact, one of the most common stereotypes regarding the Holocaust is that it was carried out by maniacal or evil people—failing to account for the fact that the scope and scale and infrastructure required to systematically slaughter 6 million people could not have been accomplished without the tacit complicity or active collaboration of literally millions of regular people, both in and outside of Nazi Germany.

No institution within a society or individual is immune to manipulation, propaganda, incitement to violence, or even apathy or turning a blind eye or developing willful ignorance to human rights violations occurring, sometimes in their own backyards—all of which were necessary for the Holocaust to occur. In order to prevent mass violence and genocide, we must become familiar with it and understand the conditions that enable it to unfold.

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This is the crux of why Holocaust education remains pivotal, particularly given the state of our world today. We have failed millennials if they are able to earn degrees and be considered “educated” without even a basic or cursory knowledge of one of the worst atrocities of the 20th century.

We have failed as a nation when some of the very same markers that led to the rise of Nazism in Germany are occurring unabated within our own borders. Do our leaders and purveyors of media not understand history as they should, or are they too turning a blind eye or engaging in willful ignorance? At least with millennials, we can say they don’t know any better. But as educators, we do. We must. And it is our job to make sure that the next cohort of our students is exposed to the Holocaust in a meaningful way to educate a new generation of civic-minded and socially responsible people.

For resources regarding Holocaust education or basics regarding this genocide, check out the online exhibit about concentration camps at the Kupferberg Holocaust Center (KHC) in Bayside, NY here.

The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM) in Washington, DC is an integral resource that can be accessed online for both educators and students wanting to learn more about the Holocaust and other genocides.

Copyright 2020 Azadeh Aalai.