Can history be taught in Vermont schools without teaching the Holocaust?
By William Moore
Does history teach us lessons that can change the way we see each other? And the way nations and people’s approach their differences? Can history show us how to avoid the mistakes of the past? History can begin a conversation but perhaps without it the conversation never starts?
Several Vermont based Holocaust education advocates joined with many Vermont legislators recently to call on the General Assembly to support Holocaust Education in all Vermont schools. They spoke in support of provisions of Senate Bill 167.
That bill would answer the above questions with Yes! Amid a tough slog for support of Holocaust Education in several bills, they explained at the Statehouse Cedar Creek Room recently why Holocaust History really matters.
As a main sponsor of the language and in stand-alone bills that urge teaching of the Holocaust in public schools, Rep. Avram Patt offered a personal story of his family. Along with Patt, Rep. Sarita Austin (D-Colchester) and Rep. Casey Toof (R-St. Albans) also urged the support of all other legislators as the Bill nears final steps in passage. It has passed the Senate and is currently awaiting the attention of House Education Committee Chair Rep. Peter Conlon.
Along with the legislators who spoke, Heidi Fishman, a Board Member of the Vermont Holocaust Memorial and author, sought to witness to the importance of the legislation with a personal story. Fishman spoke and displayed the doll her mother carried as she fled first Germany then the Netherlands to avoid Nazi persecutions and murder. That story is told vividly in her book “Tutti’s Promise” and is recommended for adults and young readers.
Fishman also stressed the early learning of “knowing what propaganda looks like” and noted that Vermont is one of only 10 states still not requiring the teaching of the Holocaust.
The Vermont Holocaust Memorial is a resource, a virtual educational organization — not a brick and mortar museum and advocates for Holocaust awareness and knowledge across all ages. https://www.holocaustmemorial-vt.org/
Aaron Goldberg, President of the Lost Mural Project offered the answer this way; in recent scientific polling the Millennial Holocaust Survey Knowledge & Awareness Survey concluded 79% of Millennials and Gen-Z believe that Holocaust Education is “a means of preventing another Holocaust”.
63% of the same respondents “do not know that 6 Million Jews were murdered and 36% thought that fewer than 2 Million Jews were murdered”. 64% of these youth believe that Holocaust education should be compulsory.
The Lost Mural Project organized a grassroots effort that completed the moving and painstaking restoration of the Lost Mural now located in the lobby of the Ohavi Zedek Synagogue in Burlington. In 2022 it was awarded one of only five Preservation Awards by the Preservation Trust of Vermont. That effort resulted in a living piece of art history directly birthed by the Holocaust experience of Vermont immigrants.
The Bill S.167, also referred to as the Miscellaneous Education Bill, contains a systematic request to ensure every school curriculum include Holocaust Education resources and components across Pre-K through 12th grade. It mandates nothing but seeks a Report back to the important committees via the Agency of Education as to what these School Districts are doing already. That Report would be provided by the Agency of Education to the 2026 General Assembly.
When published the report will inform legislators; “organized by supervisory union, regarding the inclusion of Holocaust education in curriculum across the State. Additionally, the report shall include an explanation of how curricula are developed, including an analysis of how Holocaust education fits into the standards for student performance adopted by the State Board of Education.” And –
“Included in the request from the Agency shall be Holocaust education resources, which shall be developed in consultation with the Vermont Holocaust Memorial.”
The Holocaust Education language in S. 167 was included by unanimous Vote in the Senate Education Committee and passed the entire Senate without opposition March 29.
The author is a Johnson resident.
Categories: Education, Legislation
At the risk of “touching the third rail”, did the Holocaust really happen as history has written?
The tribe God has his laser beam eyes on and is exposing in the “promised” land today is what they cannot allow to be known. One must study the inhabitants of the tents and structures along the Jordan River: back to Babylon, Mesopotamia, Egypt and Persia, then into Rome, Russia, UK, Germany, Argentina, Antartica, USA and Ukraine. Then, trace all assets and currency to the US/British/Vatican (NATO/UN) manufactured treaties made over the desert lands and our lands, so specific bloodlines can own and control it all.
Do a little research. Eisenhower ordered that the holocaust be fully documented, that evidence be gathered and preserved, that the liberation of death camps be filmed so the world could see the result of Hitler’s inhuman brutality towards the Jews. I suggest that instead of reveling in your ignorance, you pay a visit to this site and educate yourself. https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/gallery/liberation-of-nazi-camps-films
We are committed to having the commonweal spend our resources on town schooling businesses. The curricular menu provided and the bureaucracy running these business are little impacted by the parental customer base. We are going to continue to grip about the limited menu and the service we are getting. By our own votes we are trapped in this state of dissatisfied servitude. Is it time to get out of the schooling business and re-empower families to directly buy the schooling services, teachers and curriculum they want?
In all honesty: The Holocaust happened. In case you did not know it, the US spent enormous dollars and lost numerous lives in fighting the perpetrators of the Holocaust and the other crimes.
Those denying the Holocaust are destined to see it repeated.
Look at us bickering about WHAT to teach in schools with the “squeakiest wheel” getting the floor and “teaching” being the ascendant verb driving our schooling enterprise…education you say?
ALTERNATIVE: The students’ verb, LEARNING is the ascendant verb in education. Teaching and what to teach do not even come into play until the student has been convinced to engage what’s to be taught. Parents are the arbiters here but they’ve no access to what’s to be taught by whom. Dosen’t parents regaining their liberty to select courses and teachers bypass this what-schools-teach problem? They teach what the consumer wants.
I suggested that the pre-history of the need for the Holocaust is vital to understanding its function is promoting Jewish political objectives.
http://www.renegadetribune.com/the-six-million-myth/
There is much to be amazed by in this:
The obsessive invocation of the cabalistic fable of “6,000,000 dead or dying Jews” dating back at least four decades prior to the events of WWII directly undermines and betrays the notion that 6,000,000 Jews perished in Europe between 1939-1945, as Jews have claimed. It was a lie the first time, and it is a lie today!
http://www.renegadetribune.com/the-six-million-myth/
I was able to read that link yesterday, but today my internet says the server can’t be reached. So it has now been blocked. He who controls the present controls the past.
They don’t spotlight the number of Christians or others who perished. All the blood spilled over many countries, all who served and died, and all the families torn apart. Time has a way of revealing “official” narratives were not exactly detailed oriented. Yet, all wars tend to be that way by design.
The Holocaust narrative originally came into the people’s awareness through the military industrial complex and the media. Many of us know this account is true because we trust these sources and because we have been exposed to the narrative countless times in our lifetime. So, for most of us this history has become obvious, and there is no other possible explanation for the pictures of dead bodies and emaciated inmates we have all seen. Many of us are unable to tolerate anyone who might question this.
Today we read about programs in schools to help insure this intolerance continues to be propagated to younger generations.
Unfortunately for the status quo there is a small number of historians that have closely examined the forensic facts related to the claims of this history, and they have asked very pointed questions about the legitimacy of some of the Holocaust claims. For example they have made detailed studies and established facts that they believe have found that the use of gas chambers for extermination as described by the Holocaust narrative was impossible. These same historians have sought to initiate an open debate about their findings with the community that is entrenched in the existing narrative. So far, rather than agreeing to debate, the community supporting original Holocaust narrative have labeled the revisionist historians as criminals (Holocaust deniers), banned their books, attacked their character and in some cases have put them in jail.
In my view, it better serves all of us to engage in seeking truth rather than teaching our children orthodoxy and to be intolerant to debate.
https://europathelastbattle.net/holocaust.html
Mr. Razors Edge, whoever you are… your video citation is pure propaganda. It’s little wonder that you use a pseudonym to republish the nonsense (a euphemistic characterization, to be sure). To compare the internment of Japanese after the bombing of Pearl Harbor to the Holocaust is as false a dichotomy as one can imagine. I stopped watching the video when the narrator insisted that the victims of that U.S. paranoia were never compensated – when, in fact, they were.
“In 1990, the U.S. government began mailing out envelopes, each containing a presidential letter of apology and a $20,000 check from the Treasury, to more than 82,000 Japanese Americans who, during World War II, were robbed of their homes, jobs, and rights, and incarcerated in camps.” – The Atlantic, 6-10-23
Was the Japanese reparation sufficient? That’s not the point. And it’s not the point that every detail of the Jewish holocaust may or may not be precise in certain recollections. What’s important to keep in mind is that man’s inhumanity to mankind has been horrific for millennia. From Alexander the Great, to the Roman obliteration of Carthage, to Genghis Khan, to Hitler, to Joseph Stalin, to Mao Zedong, we humans have a propensity to do unspeakable things to one another. And throughout history, as I’ve studied it at least, it all begins with some form of denial… the same ‘third rail’ conversations I’m seeing here.
Praemonitus praemunitus.
H. Jay- refusing to watch is not an argument. It is intolerance to debate.
I have better things to do with my time than watch a regurgitation of stale old nazi revisionism.
My father fought the nazis in WWII. Them and their ideas are still the enemy in my book and always will be.
I didn’t refuse to watch your citation, Mr. Edge whoever-you-are. I watched the dribble you published until its first blatant falsehood on Japanese reparations was presented. Fool me once, as they say.
Thank you for your comment. By being closed You make my point exactly.
Mr H.Jay,
I think you miss the point. While I don’t know for certain why this misrepresentation has occurred (I believe it is likely this portion of the documentary was made prior to 1990), it is really a moot point. The intent of including content concerning the internment of Japanese Americans was to demonstrate establishment of concentration camps during war time is not unusual. It is unfortunate the annoyance you have found here left you holding so much intolerance you refused to watch the remainder of the documentary. How can anyone determine the truth without considering both sides? Calling the other side drivel does not make it so, and really is not a rational argument. Such name calling is meant to suppress rather then contribute anything meaningful.
I truly wondered if there would be any holocaust deniers present here. Silly of me to wonder, really.
It’s probably the guy who got fired from his pizza joint job after he was spotted at a nazi rally with his kid. I can’t remember his name. I think he is still facing felony charges for that stunt.
I saw him once at Hot Topic when my daughter insisted i buy stuff for her there. So glad she grew out of that phase.