By Pam Hersh
To mark the 75th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz concentration camp on Jan. 27, more than 40 presidents and prime ministers, kings, princes and grand dukes came to Jerusalem to attend the Fifth World Holocaust Forum, titled “Remembering the Holocaust, Fighting Anti-Semitism.”
To mark the 25th anniversary of New Jersey’s Holocaust/genocide education legislative mandate (signed into law by Gov. Christine Todd Whitman in 1994), Pennington resident Dr. Jennifer Rich last year decided to do a survey to assess the effectiveness of that education mandate.
She spoke about the survey and Holocaust education at a Jan. 24 event sponsored by Rowan’s Institute for Public Policy & Citizenship at the Trenton headquarters of the New Jersey Business and Industry Association.
Dr. Rich, the executive director of the Rowan Center for the Study of Holocaust, Genocide and Human Rights, and an assistant professor of Sociology at Rowan, wanted to assess how much teachers – who were educated after the mandate was implemented – knew about the Holocaust, the topic which they were teaching or about to teach to K-12 students. The survey participants were 200 future and current teachers; all surveys were conducted in classes by professors or graduate research assistants trained in the administration of surveys; and all questions were open-ended and followed up with interviews.
With concern about rising anti-Semitism around the world – from attacks in Pittsburgh; San Diego; Monsey, New York; and Jersey City, to a declaration by the German city of Dresden of an emergency around the re-emergence of Nazi ideology – this issue of the effectiveness of Holocaust education has become front and center, said Dr. Rich, whose research focuses on Holocaust education and memory. Her first book, “Keepers of Memory: The Holocaust and Trans-generational Identity,” explores the ways in which Holocaust memories are transmitted from one generation to the next.
The questions posed by Dr. Rich in the survey were not particularly scary. The
responses, however, were terrifying.
1. What was the Holocaust?
2. When did the Holocaust take place?
3. What was the name of the perpetrating political party?
4. What countries were involved with the Holocaust, and in what ways?
5. Who were the victim groups?
6. How many people were killed?
7. What is Kristallnacht?
8. List any concentration camps you know.
9. Who was the American president during the Holocaust?
10. List any other genocides you know of.
Responses: (different answers separated by semi-colons)
1. “It led to great advances in science;” “a successful use of propaganda.”
2. 1700s; 1800s; sometime in the 1900s; 19-something.
3. Democrats; Republicans; Hitler; Nazis
4. Germany; United States; Britain; Japan.
5. “The ones (that are) like Anne Frank”; the Jews.
6. 100,000; “a couple hundred thousand”; “too many.”
7. Christmas night; a German holiday; “lol” (laughing out loud); “idk” (I don’t know)
8. Auschwitz (spelled 28 different ways); “idk.”
9. Reagan; “Rosenberth”; “Eisenhoward.” (real spellings, not typos)
10.“The ones where babies in China are killed because they are girls”; “the one
where they drank the Kool-Aid”; “the Boston massacre.”
As I listened in shock and horror, I kept praying I had wandered into a late-night comedy routine or had fallen through the Looking Glass. Dr. Rich, however, threw me some verbal cold water by reaffirming the veracity of these responses, representing not all 200 responses, but a frightening critical mass.
The Honorable James Florio, as former New Jersey governor and congressman, a professor of public policy at the Rutgers Bloustein School, and a John F. Kennedy Profile in Courage award recipient (for his gun control leadership in 1990), also listened to Dr. Rich’s presentation about the “disturbing” survey results.
“I am re-reading Erich Fromm’s ‘Escape from Freedom,’” a book written in 1941 by the famous psychoanalyst. It describes the psychosocial conditions that facilitated the rise and sustainability of Nazism. “He could be talking about what is going on today in the United States. You should re-read the book,” Gov. Florio said to me, someone who is quite embarrassed to admit I will read it for the first time in the very near future.
Lacking historical perspective is troubling when it comes to not only the Holocaust, but also other genocides and other government-inflicted atrocities occurring throughout history. The current focus in education on science and technology, and jobs is laudable and crucial to our future, but we can’t leave the study of history and human behavior lying in a gutter of lost iPhones.
Dr. Rich acknowledged the problem is not lack of a Holocaust curriculum, since the New Jersey Commission on Holocaust Education has done a spectacular job by providing curriculum content for teaching about the Holocaust/genocide, prejudice and bullying. Her goal is to try to conduct a large-scale survey of students and teachers to assess the situation more thoroughly and to define more precisely the nature of the problems.
And we probably have to look at new technologies as tools to communicate the lessons of the past, she said.
Just as STEM education (Science, Technology, Engineering, Math) has expanded to STEAM (arts) education, we may have to consider STEAHM education, and I welcome your suggestions for a better acronym.
