The Clearing House, 84: 26–30, 2011 Copyright C Taylor & Francis Group, LLC ISSN: 0009-8655 print; 1939-912x online DOI: 10.1080/00098655.2010.496813
Meeting a Moral Imperative: A Rationale for Teaching the Holocaust DAVID H. LINDQUIST
Abstract: A primary rationale for studying the Holocaust (Shoah) involves the opportunity to consider the moral implications that can be drawn from examining the event. Studying the Shoah forces students to consider what it means to be human and humane by examining the full continuum of individual behavior, from ultimate evil to ultimate good. This article discusses several implications involved in studying the event, while proposing that a moral imperative exists for the presence of Holocaust education in contemporary classrooms.
caust provides unique opportunities to study complex moral and ethical problems that play a fundamental role in understanding the world in which we live. Therefore, planning a Holocaust unit must involve a sophisticated understanding of the complexities involved in teaching about the event, not the least of which is an examination of the moral and ethical realities that are confronted when studying the Shoah.1 Approaching the Study of the Holocaust The importance of studying the Shoah cannot be overstated. Survivor and Nobel Prize laureate Elie Wiesel holds that “Auschwitz [used as a metaphor for the Holocaust in general] is a watershed event, a before and an after; after Auschwitz, nothing can ever be the same again” (Ward 1993). Totten, Feinberg, and Fernekes (2001) propose that ignoring the Holocaust distorts history, leaving critical gaps in experience and knowledge that affect how people view the world in which they live. This view aligns with Eisner’s (1979, 83) null theory of education, which states that “ignorance is not simply a void, it has important effects on the kinds of options one is able to consider.” Thus, the Shoah must be taught because, as Berenbaum says:
Keywords: Holocaust education, Holocaust rationales, Holocaust impact on society, Holocaust curriculum Dear Teacher: I am a survivor of a concentration camp. My eyes saw what no man should witness. Gas chambers built by learned engineers. Children poisoned by educated physicians. Infants killed by trained nurses. Women and babies shot and burned by high school and college graduates. So, I am suspicious of education. My request is: Help your students become more human.
The Holocaust has become the negative absolute in American society. In a world of relativism, we don’t know what’s bad, and we don’t know what’s good, but the one thing we can agree upon is that this is absolute evil, and it has become the standard by which we judge evil and, therefore, the standard by which we begin to establish values. (interviewed in Anker 2004)
Your efforts must never produce learned monsters, skilled psychopaths, educated Eichmanns. Reading, writing, and arithmetic are important only if they serve to make our children more humane. (quoted in Ginott 1972, 317)
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n defining the motivation on which his educational philosophy was based, a newly appointed principal gave this letter to his teachers on the day he assumed his duties at a private high school. The letter can be extended to introduce the idea that examining the Holo-
One compelling aspect involved in studying the Holocaust is the opportunity that considering the event provides for examining every possibility of human behavior, spanning a continuum ranging from ultimate evil
David H. Lindquist, PhD, is an associate professor and coordinator of the undergraduate secondary education program in the School of Education at Indiana University–Purdue University, Fort Wayne, IN. 26