By Bill Tingling

“Humans have the will to strive for what is right.
This and memories of the past helps to ensure that history does
Not repeat it.” Elie Wiesel

In the month of June 2011, many School Teachers, Graduate Students, other educators and

Judith Szentivanyi (Holocaust Survivor

I, had the opportunity of spending several days together studying the History of the Holocaust, Human Rights and Genocide at the Florida Holocaust Museum, Sam Gross Institute in St. Petersburg Florida.

Under the Tutelage of Dr. Mary Johnson, Senior Historian and expert, Facing History and Ourselves, Dr. Edward Kissi, Professor of African Studies at the University of South Florida and Dr. Peter Black, a historian from the Holocaust Museum in Washington DC, we studied history, man-inhumanity-to-man, and learned ways to prevent atrocities in the future. Seeing the original artifacts, i.e., boxcar used to transport people during the Holocaust, spending time with Holocaust Survivors, survivors from Rwanda, Cambodian survivors, and watching documentaries of Faith under Fire was truly life changing.

According to the United States- Holocaust Education Report, there are only 50 individual states, not the federal government, are primarily responsible for education policy. Therefore, there is no national curriculum or course of study on the Holocaust that has been created by the government of the United States.

Five states have enacted laws requiring the teaching of the Holocaust. This is known as creating a “legislative mandate.”

Jerry Rawicki (Holocaust Survivor)

These states are: California, Florida, Illinois, New Jersey, and New York. Of these five, Florida and New Jersey have created extensive and detailed curricula and guides for the teaching of the Holocaust through their independent state commissions. New York and California have both created less detailed guides through their respective state departments of education, while Illinois has created neither a curriculum nor guides.

Ten other states have regulations encouraging or recommending the teaching of the Holocaust: Connecticut, Georgia, Indiana, Massachusetts, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, and Washington. These regulations are either enacted by state legislatures or by state governors. Those created by the legislature are known as “legislative regulations,” while those created by state governors are known as “executive regulations.”

Twelve states have also created Holocaust commissions or councils that support Holocaust

Lisi Schick (Holocaust Survivor)

education: Alabama, California, Florida, Georgia, Kansas, Nevada, New Jersey, North Carolina, Ohio, South Carolina, Tennessee, and West Virginia. The scope of these commissions and councils varies widely from state to state.

Forty-eight states and the District of Columbia have social-studies standards that are crafted by their respective departments of education (the Alabama Department of Education, the South Dakota Department of Education, etc.). Teachers are required to address these standards-all of which include study of the Holocaust-in their classes. Iowa allows the local school districts to create their own standards, while Rhode Island relies on standards created by the National Center for History in the Schools of the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA).

If the Holocaust is not a mandatory subject, what percentage of schools chooses to teach about the Holocaust?

Forty-eight states and the District of Columbia have created social-studies standards for their classrooms. As of early 2004, the Holocaust is explicitly named in 24 state standards

Stanlee J. Stahl Executive Vice President The Jewish Foundation for the righteous

(Alabama, Arizona, California, Colorado, Delaware, Georgia, Indiana, Kansas, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, Oklahoma,
Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas, Virginia, and West Virginia) and the District of Columbia’s; it is implicitly identified in the remaining 23 standards when, for example, teachers are asked to address the development and consequences of the policies of National Socialist Germany. As standards play an increasingly important role in U.S. education, it can be assumed that most schools address the subject of the Holocaust.

William E. Stagg, Sophal Leng Stagg (Cambodian Survivor), Dr. Edward Kissi, and Bill Tingling

Help us to get Holocaust studies in all American classrooms by becoming a member of the Teaching Trunks project. We have Teaching Trunks for all grades, and can ship these teaching trunks to anywhere in the United States.

To reserve your trunk please contact Charles Jaynes at 727-8200 100 ext. 249 or cjaynes@flholocaustmuseum.org or Bill Tingling at 718 230-7821 bill@wordsofbonds.org

Dr. Edward Kissi and Students

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