The World Jewish Congress is pushing lawmakers to make Holocaust education mandatory in all US schools.
The group cited statistics from a 2018 poll which stated almost half of millennials were unable to name a single Nazi concentration camp and 41% believed the number of Jews killed in the Holocaust was much less than six million.
Congress has also been urged to take proactive steps to ensure students are equipped to take up the challenge of remembering the Holocaust, continuing its legacy, and fighting antisemitism.
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RT reports: The WJC started a petition calling on Congress to “make Holocaust education mandatory in every school in the United States,” that has garnered 8,500 signatures so far. The petition points to a rise in antisemitism and warns that “the horrors of the Holocaust are fading from our collective memory, especially among millennials.”
It refers to statistics found in the 2018 Holocaust Knowledge and Awareness Study which surveyed 1,350 Americans aged 18 and over and found 49 percent of millennials and 45 percent of adults couldn’t name a concentration camp or ghetto in Europe during the Holocaust. It also revealed that 41 percent of millennials think the number of Jews killed in the Holocaust was two million or less, rather than six million.
‘The Never Again Education Act’ would create a grant program run by the Department of Education to provide teachers with training and tools to teach students about the Holocaust “and the repercussions that hate and intolerance can have on our society.”
The bill was reintroduced in January by Representative Carolyn Maloney (D-NY) after failing to be enacted at a previous session of Congress. California, Florida, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, New Jersey, New York, and Rhode Island already have laws requiring schools to teach students about the Holocaust.
