Students Needs to Be Taught About the Holocaust in Our Schools

I was reading an article in the USA Today about the Holocaust education. There's a possibility it may receive funding cuts due to the recession. There's a middle school teacher in Smyrna, Tennessee named Jill Coble who teaches about the Holocaust in her social studies classes. She is the unofficial coordinator of about 12 teachers trying to help the Tennessee Commission on Holocaust Education to fulfill its mission and bring awareness of the Holocaust and remember its victims. She says that many of her students that arrive each year basically have no knowledge of the Holocaust. What makes the task difficult is the state is reducing funding for education and the Tennessee Commission which teaches about the Holocaust may receive reduced funds. Even though a portion of the stimulus funding will include the Tennessee funding, the state's annual budget of $128,300 will no longer cover that group. The Tennessee Commission has to look for other ways to improvise.

I don't know anything about the commission nor what kind of material is purchased to teach the Holocaust, but regardless of whether funding is reduced when it comes to purchasing materials, the topic should be covered in the social studies classes. We live in a generation today where many young people don't know America's history. It's a travesty. We've become so accustomed to the conveniences of life that we've taken for granted the price that's been paid by our forefathers before us so we can enjoy the opportunities that are set before us today. The price of our freedom was paid for in blood. World War II was a bloody war and many soldiers, Jews, and other religious groups lost their lives because of a power-hungry dictator named Adolf Hitler.

When you hear about the "Holocaust", it's made in reference to the Holocaust that Adolf Hitler forced on the Jews. That's the Holocaust you mostly hear about. There's a Holocaust Museum in Washington D.C. which shows pictures that depict the genocide of Jews and other groups. The Holocaust was a systematic statewide sponsored program to exterminate the Jews and those that didn't agree with Hitler. They were put in concentration camps and worked as slaves until they died. The Holocaust was a genocide under the Hitler regime. Hitler hated the Jews. He was racist. He thought they were a cancer in society. He wanted a pure Aryan race. Some six million Jews were slaughtered during World War II. There were other groups that were killed as well such as the Soviet prisoners of war, the ethnic Poles, Soviet civilians, Jehovah's Witnesses and other religious groups. How could somebody possess so much hatred toward an entire race such as the Jews? There are dictators who are very racist. Racism isn't just a black and white issue in America like some of the mainstream media would have you believe.

The students in our schools need to be taught about the Holocaust in the classroom. They need to recognize there are some wicked, racist people who live on this earth and that there's been groups of people that have suffered under such brutal regimes as Adolf Hitler, for example. However, the Jewish Holocaust was only once aspect of genocide. Back during World War I and after, there was the Aremenina genocide in the Ottoman Empire. The Turks persecuted them. It was characerized by massacres and forced marches. Approximately 1.5 million were killed. Back during the 1990's there was genocide taking place in Bosnia. When reading the book of Acts in the Bible, you read about Saul (Paul) that persecuted Christians before his conversion. During early church history, there was the persecution of Christians by the Roman emperor Nero. There have been those Christians in church history that have stood for the faith and were beheaded because they wouldn't recant. There's always been genocides and persecutions of some sort.

It's important that teachers instruct the students about the horrors of the Holocaust and the Hitler regime. Students need to know how wicked Hitler was. Students need to be aware that this world is a wicked place. They need to understand human nature and that power corrupts individuals. I also believe that they need to be taught about the persecution of the Christians since the beginning of the early church. I know that would be considered a violation of the separation of church and state, but the persecution of Christians is part of world history. The children that attend school will be the future leaders of tomorrow. How can they make proper leadership decisions if they don't know American and world history? I believe that before Christ comes back for the church, there's a possibility God's people might face persecution again. We need to be ready for it in case it does happen. There will be genocides in this world until Jesus comes again.