Not forgetting the Holocaust trauma

The Washington Post reports on the passing of an era:

Schools across the country will soon be forced to alter the way they teach the most disturbing event of the past century. The reason: Old age is claiming what Hitler could not.

For decades, men and women have visited classrooms to give firsthand accounts of the systematic elimination of Europe’s Jews. As survivors, they were the exception, because far more perished than made it out alive. Stories from eyewitnesses to the Holocaust have been seen as the best way to help students understand how a civilized, educated society could collaborate as 6 million Jews were murdered.

That is coming to an end. People who were teenagers when the war began in 1939 are now in their 80s. So educators are looking for new ways to reach students before the Holocaust becomes just one historical event.

Text and images ©2024 Antony Loewenstein. All rights reserved.

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