Admittedly I did not plan on writing a blog post for Holocaust Remembrance Day (1/27/22), but I woke up yesterday I just couldn’t stop thinking about it. It’s important to me to acknowledge this because I am continually seeing more and more bits of history lost each year.
I want to write about this not to shame anyone or to get into any kind of debate. The Holocaust was happening 77 years ago. Each year we lose more survivors who experienced this atrocity. Each new generation is taught less and less. We can’t let that happen.
Right now you might be thinking about your own knowledge of the Holocaust (or lack-there-of). It’s fascinating to me how much this will vary by every single person reading this. Depending on your age, where you grew up/went to school, and your family history what you know about this time in history may be different from others you know.
Now at 35 years old, I know I was first taught about the Holocaust back when I was in elementary school. I know it was actually a specific part of the curriculum at the time. History has always intrigued me but this was something that left me speechless even when I was a kid. In fourth grade we actually took a field trip to Ellis Island (I grew up in New Jersey so it wasn’t that far away). I remember learning about Anne Frank and her revolutionary diary. I cried reading her diary. I cried reading Elie Wiesel’s Night absolutely dumbfounded how someone could survive that. Then I proceeded to read every survivor’s memoir I could get my hands on. How could something like this possibly have happened? As I got older it became harder and harder to reconcile how something so horrific could be done by a group of human beings.
As recently as a few years ago, this morphed into a new kind of horror when I discovered there are people out there who know little to nothing about this time in history. People in their twenties who didn’t know the basic details about the Holocaust such as what Auschwitz was or why Anne Frank was even a historical figure. Now many children are barely even taught about it in school. There simply isn’t room in the curriculum right? It happened 77 years ago. A paragraph or two will do right? We can watch movies or read books… it’s too graphic to teach the young kids…lets just address it in high school. That’s just it though. It’s not. High school kids are becoming college graduates somehow being able to just look the other way.
Again, I say all this not to shame or debate anyone on their knowledge of the Holocaust- I realize every person’s circumstances are different. I write all this only out of hope that this time in history is not simply washed away. Just like I wrote for 9/11, we can’t ever forget about this. It boils my blood to see articles like this and this. I literally just bought a second copy of “Maus” because I somehow lost my original during one of my moves. It is a heartbreaking yet incredible work of art that could be used as a learning tool. To see any school district banning literature or discussion about the Holocaust to me is absolutely enraging. It’s bad enough if it’s simply not included in the curriculum, but to take it to this level is just devastating.
If you take one thing away from reading this, I ask you to do your own research. Read one article about the Holocaust today. Read Anne Frank’s diary and Elie Wiesel’s Night. Tell your kids about her. Speak up. Donate to help keep the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum alive. One thing can and will make a difference. It’s one less person forgetting.
nicole kanz 