Should young children be exposed to gruesome Holocaust stories?

For 83 year old Holocaust survivor Al Marks, who visited my “Post-Civil War” history class on Monday afternoon, the answer to this question was a definite yes. Marks came up to the classroom stage podium with a quiet confidence and said, “I’ve been talking about my experiences to students for fifteen years now, many of them being elementary school students”. He went on to mention an elementary school he went to last week where, “not one single parent excused their child from attending my speech”. Marks suddenly punched the air with his fist in celebration and swelled up with joy because he knew that many of these parents weren’t Jewish, yet they still allowed their children to hear Marks’ story.

The parents in this scenario thought that the prospect of preventing discrimination (by allowing their children to hear Marks talk) was more important than the fact that Marks was a member of a different religion. For most parents and most Americans in general, the concept of religious toleration is obvious, but the toleration of violence is not. To put it lightly, the Holocaust was most certainly “violent”. Therefore, when I was in elementary and middle school I learned about the Holocaust once a year and my parents would always express their concern by saying, “Why do teachers put the kids through this”?

My parents felt torn because they wanted me to see how damaging discrimination can be, but they also wanted to protect my innocent mind from the cruel world that the Holocaust presented so clearly. The Holocaust seems unimaginable for those of us who didn’t experience it personally, but unfortunately, it was reality for millions of Jews. At the tender age of 13, Al Marks knew what it was like to have his reality change for the worst in an instant. I think that practicing non-discriminatory thoughts and actions on a daily basis, like the religious-tolerant parents did in Marks’ discussion, and learning about the Holocaust time and time again is the only way to protect children from the meaningless violence that the Holocaust represents. We must make sure that an event of this nature never happens again.

How do you feel about the fact that the Holocaust is taught in schools? Would you allow your children to learn about it, or would you excuse them from class?