Even though I was raised in a traditional Jewish household, the Holocaust was rarely mentioned during my formative years. Not having any family members who had to flee from Nazi persecution, or worse, as a child this subject almost completely passed me by.
Little of what I knew came from TV shows and movies. One of my childhood memories is watching the BBC Panorama documentary about Auschwitz and being completely shocked and heartbroken by it.
Other than that, it was never discussed in our household or in the polite circles in which we gathered. Visiting the Polish camp was never even discussed, as it was for many.
Similarly, Israel was rarely featured in my youth. His JNF box by the kitchen was the only connection we had to the Jewish state. We vacationed in Europe, but Israel was a place that existed only in my imagination.
I took my first trip to Israel with my youth group when I was 16 years old. During our month-long tour, we visited Yad Vashem, which unfortunately left little impression on my younger self. I didn't feel the connection that others felt on their first visit. Perhaps my ignorance and youthful frivolity made it difficult for me to comprehend the horror of the exhibit placed before me.
But as I got older, my interest in the Holocaust grew even more. I was drawn to books on this subject, and over time they made up the bulk of my reading.
But my thirst for knowledge and real stories involving real people was never satisfied.
I had never even met a Holocaust survivor until I was in my 30s. Determined, like me, that I didn't want my children to grow up with little knowledge of the Holocaust or Israel, one of their first trips was to the Jewish state, and we as a family. I visited Yad Vashem.
They were at an age that some might consider too young to visit this museum, but we still decided to go. Her husband himself was particularly knowledgeable about the Holocaust and guided us around with commentary tailored to the young audience. Needless to say, our decision to introduce children to the Holocaust at such a young age was justified, and both they and I got a lot out of this visit.
We repeated this visit after making aliyah when they were a little older. Much of what they learned on their first tour of the museum stayed with them. This became clear to me the second time I toured the museum.
Although we didn't want our children to become obsessed with the dark chapters of our history, it was important to introduce them to this story from an early age. I believe that learning about this vital part of their tradition and how it led to the creation of the State of Israel that we now call home is vital to their overall development. We felt it.
Unlike me, my children learned about the Holocaust in school. The Holocaust is part of the curriculum in Israel (and in other countries as well).
What is the status of Holocaust education outside of Israel?
But outside of Israel, ignorance surrounding the Holocaust is “alarming,” said a recent article in The Economist. A new poll conducted by the magazine in collaboration with YouGov reveals this worrying trend. “One in five young Americans thinks the Holocaust is a myth,” the headline screamed.
The body of the article expands on this grim statistic, highlighting the critical importance of “raising awareness about the history of anti-Semitism and the Holocaust,” as Yad Vashem emphasized that same month. It leaves the reader with no doubt.
The poll found that “approximately 20% of respondents aged 18 to 29 believe the Holocaust is a myth, compared to 8% of respondents aged 30 to 44.” Additionally, 30% of young Americans say they don't know if the Holocaust is a hoax. ”
Surveys conducted over the past five years “targeting Millennials and Gen Z”, including a 2020 NBC NEWS survey, show that many young people “don't know much about basic facts about society.” This is not surprising as it has been. [Holocaust]Almost three-quarters were unaware that 6 million Jews were murdered in the Holocaust, and “more than half of them thought the death toll was less than 2 million,” the news channel reported.
Education, or lack thereof, cannot be blamed for this alarming statistic about “one of the greatest crimes in modern history,” says The Economist. “Our poll finds that the proportion of respondents who believe the Holocaust is a myth is similar across all levels of education,” it confirms.
So who or what is to blame? While there is no definitive answer, it does suggest that social media is in no small part to blame. “Conspiracy theories are rife on social media sites, and research has found a strong link between social media usage and belief in such theories.”
Since the Hamas attack on October 7, this ignorance has provided a perfect breeding ground for the spread of lies and misinformation. Since that dark day, there has been a massive rise in anti-Semitism, with many calls for the murder of Jews and references to Hitler and the Holocaust.
But such calls come not only from the ignorant and uneducated lumpen elements of society. The corruption is even worse and widespread among highly educated people who do not dispute that the Holocaust happened and even commemorate it. These seemingly knowledgeable people flaunt their ignorance about the Holocaust by drawing parallels with the Palestinian cause. To properly understand the Holocaust, we must understand its unique nature: that it was a deliberate and systematic attempt to destroy the world's Jewry. The factory of death that the Nazis built for this sole purpose has never been replicated anywhere else in the world. It is a travesty of complete lack of knowledge or complete misunderstanding for educated people to equate the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) with the Nazi Schutzstaff (SS) and suggest that Israel is the new Nazi Germany.
Part of the responsibility for this should lie with educators. Educators should repeatedly emphasize the uniqueness of this event, rather than choosing the message that it is of “universal significance.''
The root of the problem is that there is an urgent need for inclusivity, and that the particularist lessons of the Holocaust are diluted into a universalist approach. Once the Holocaust is accepted as one in a series of genocides, sooner or later it is suggested (and accepted in some quarters) that its latest iteration is the “Palestinian Holocaust” and the “genocide” in Gaza. ) was almost inevitable. ”
We are furious and must challenge and counter this harmful revisionism, but some self-reflection is not in vain.
Proper self-inquiry should lead to the conclusion that something must be done to change this troubling development. Educators and institutions tasked with teaching future generations about the Holocaust are simply not doing their job effectively, and a fundamental rethinking of their approach is required.
If we've learned nothing else over the past seven months, it's this.
The author is a former British lawyer who currently lives in Israel and works as a freelance writer for the Jerusalem Post.