Editorial: Expand Holocaust studies to all state-supported schools

Florida state Rep. Tina Polsky and state Sen. Kevin Rader have a very good idea. The two lawmakers from Palm Beach County want charter schools and private schools that receive state tuition vouchers to be required to teach about the Holocaust, just as traditional public schools are.

And why not? Those schools receive public money, too. The public, in return, has every reason to expect that those students are given a solid grounding in becoming good citizens.

Polsky and Rader want to build upon Florida’s 25-year-law requiring Holocaust studies in public schools. That law passed with unanimous votes in the Florida House and Senate in 1994, but exempted charters and private schools. This proposed legislation (HB 91 and SB 184) fills an obvious hole in the original measure. It deserves the same bipartisan support that its forebear received.

Teaching all Florida public school students about the Nazis’ program of extermination of European Jewry is not some sop to a particular ethnicity or voting bloc. Rather, it is to protect our democracy’s values that we must ensure that students acquire “an understanding of the ramifications of prejudice, racism and stereotyping,” as the current law puts it.

In our diverse and pluralistic society, it is essential that new generations learn what can happen when minority groups are singled out and scapegoated. In 1930s Germany, the fanning of old hatreds led to a steady escalation of discriminatory laws, to separation into ghettos and camps. Finally, to genocide.

That history must be told and re-told. Last year, the U.S. Jewish community experienced near-historic levels of anti-Semitism (1,879 attacks on Jewish people and institutions), including the single deadliest attack against the Jewish community in history, a gunman’s assault on a Pittsburgh synagogue that left 11 dead.

The same evil spirit echoed this year in a Walmart in El Paso, where a gunman went looking for Hispanics to kill -- and slaughtered 22.

It was just two months ago that a Spanish River High School principal in Boca Raton made nationwide news by telling a parent that he couldn’t “say the Holocaust is a factual, historic event” and that his students could opt out of Holocaust classes because “not everyone believes the Holocaust happened.” For a trusted educator to make such remarks was astounding. He justly lost his job.

Unfortunately, there’s enough evidence to suggest that he isn’t alone. Nearly one-third of Americans and 40 percent of Millennials believe that substantially fewer than 6 million Jews were killed during the Holocaust, according to a 2018 survey by the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany. That same survey found that 70 percent of respondents believe people care less about the Holocaust than before. Yet 58 percent believe something like the Holocaust could happen again.

The bill from Polsky and Rader would improve Holocaust education in another way, as well: It would direct the Florida Department of Education to create a curriculum. Right now, each school principal can decide how to teach about the atrocities, to widely varying degrees of commitment and enthusiasm.

That’s been the case as well with a similar mandate, also passed in 1994, to “infuse” black history and culture into Florida’s public school curriculum. As we’ve noted before, many educators have ignored this law for years. As Polsky and Rader seek to expand Holocaust studies, they should be open to friendly amendments that will also mainstream black studies throughout the school experience.

Commendably, lawmakers from both parties, reacting to such incidents as the Walmart shooting, have introduced several resolutions condemning white nationalism and white supremacy. They’ll be considered when the Legislature convenes in January.

Recent events make powerfully clear that each generation has a duty to actively battle prejudice and hate. Ron Klein introduced the 1994 Holocaust bill as a Democratic representative from Boca Raton. He put it well.

“Education,” he said then, “is the only way we can learn about the evils man can perpetrate on one another.”