Testimony for Teitelbaum Bill

My name is Esther Finder and I am President of The Generation After.  We are children of Holocaust survivors.

We must face the truth that humans have the capacity for prejudice, discrimination and even mass murder if we hope to prevent future atrocities.  A Holocaust, Genocide Studies, Human Rights and Tolerance Center in Maryland would provide our teachers the resources for their professional education and for their classroom use.  It could also provide public programs in the form of lectures, traveling exhibits, etc, for the benefit of the general citizenry.  In our classrooms and our community centers we should teach tolerance and an appreciation for diversity.

As the daughter of Holocaust survivors I have concerns about Holocaust education.  Even though I live in Montgomery County, so close to the US Holocaust Memorial Museum, I have found there are many who teach Holocaust-related topics and do not have to have any real knowledge of the Holocaust.  One example: about 3 years ago I got a call from a friend who told me her daughter’s GT [gifted & talented] English teacher told the students that the Jews are a race and they all look alike.  I started asking Montgomery County Public School officials about their policy requiring Holocaust education for Holocaust educators.  I learned that high school history teachers must learn about the Holocaust before they teach the subject but there was no mandate for English teachers, who discuss The Diary of Anne Frank, to have any knowledge of the Holocaust at all.  I found that unbelievable and unacceptable.  When I tried to get the county to make provisions for English teachers to get some background training, I learned that the ball had been dropped and teachers had the option not to teach the subject.  Rather than trying to teach the subject well, it was decided to let the subject drop.

One of the arguments made for not pursuing this was that there were not enough resources available for Holocaust education for MCPS teachers.  There should be Holocaust education programs available for continuing education credit for history, government, sociology, psychology, political science, law and English teachers in Maryland.  The Center can host such educational programs that are also open to the public.  You can’t do that at most universities.  That is one reason to create this Center in Maryland.

There are resources that might be developed in the Center that would benefit students.  The Center could put together a bullying and harassment prevention curriculum.  There are definitely links between the types of attitudes, beliefs and behaviors that lead to the violence against Jews in Germany in the 1930s and the types of attitudes, beliefs and behaviors that manifest themselves in hate crimes in America today.  The Center can house a circulating library and develop traveling exhibits.   These are educational supports that are not provided by the US Holocaust Memorial Museum.

For years I have volunteered to go to schools to talk about the Holocaust.  I have found that students are sincerely interested in the subject and are eager to gain some understanding of what happened during World War II.  Even if only a few days of class time is dedicated to Holocaust education, it is invaluable.  After one class meeting with me the students take with them a new appreciation for freedom and democracy.

You can learn much about a society and a culture by the way it treats its vulnerable minorities.  In the Holocaust war was declared against the Jews, gypsies, homosexuals, and other peoples who were considered genetically or racially inferior or were simply deemed to be "undesirable"—lives not worthy of life.  The Holocaust speaks to critical concepts in a multitude of disciplines that are taught in our high schools, universities and graduate programs.  More importantly, these are issues we all must deal with:

-What happens in a society where a few individuals have absolute power?

-What happens when there are no checks & balances in a democracy?  Germany had been a democracy when Hitler came to power.  (Political science, law)

-What happens when there is no freedom of the press or freedom of speech?  (Journalism)

-What happens when pseudo-scientific ideas are presented as scientific fact for political or economic purposes?  (Sciences, medicine, philosophy and ethics)

-How does the individual person behave when the society behaves immorally?  (Psychology)

-What happens when prejudice becomes institutionalized discrimination?  (Sociology)

-What are crimes against humanity?  (Law)

-What is scapegoating?  Is this relevant to bullying in schools? Does it lead to hate crimes?

-What is individual responsibility?

I could go on and on but the point is obvious:  there is much to be learned from the study of the Holocaust.  Unfortunately the world has not—we have not—learned, so we must show our students that genocides continue to occur during our lifetimes.  My own daughter was a volunteer at the US Holocaust Museum for the past 2 summers.  While there she listened to a survivor of the horrors now happening in Darfur in the Sudan:  the woman spoke of how people are being forced from their homes, murdered, etc..  She was so moved by what the woman said that my teenage daughter decided to try to do something to make a difference.  She wrote a letter to her school paper trying to raise awareness.  She is in the process of organizing a fundraiser and has the support of her school principal and several student groups.  She wears a bracelet from the Holocaust Museum that is sold to raise money for Darfur relief.  It says "not on my watch."  Not enough people cared when all her grandparents suffered in the Holocaust.  She learned from history and she cares.

Holocaust education is vital not only to learn about the past, but also to try to shape a better future for all.  If our young people don’t have the opportunity to learn the lessons of the past how we can expect them to make this world a better place?  This center could provide programming for use beyond the classroom:  it could help raise awareness by offering public programs on tolerance in our communities.