IGNORANCE ABOUT AUSCHWITZ IS A TEACHABLE MOMENT
Re: What’s Auschwitz, Asks NDP Candidate, Sept. 24; A Failure Of Our Education System, Colby Cosh, Sept 25. So Alex Johnstone, the NDP candidate in Hamilton, Ont., didn’t know what Auschwitz was. The Sarah & Chaim Neuberger Holocaust Education Centre’s Holocaust Education Week takes place this year Nov. 2-9. Among the more than 150 programs scheduled, there are two in Hamilton on the evenings of Nov. 1 and 9. For her edification and enlightenment, Johnstone would benefit greatly by attending these events.
Howard Driman, Toronto. As a son of a survivor of Auschwitz, I ask that this incident be a healing and teaching moment, not a shaming. Social workers are undervalued people. Their education appears to be focused on the underprivileged, not on history.
The Holocaust teaches us we must be vigilant because even an advanced society can fall for an extreme ideology. This runs contrary to the common belief that tyranny and violence are only a reaction to oppression. In our multicultural society, are social workers equipped to help clients abandon limiting beliefs? This incident suggests they may be in an ideological vacuum.
Tom Samek, Westmount, Que. Alex Johnstone’s blunt and honest statement “I didn’t know” is both refreshing and shocking.
On the one hand, admitting personal ignorance permits individual learning to occur. She can now begin a journey of discovery that, hopefully, will lead to greater understanding of some of the seminal events of the last century. This new knowledge may help her to better understand the attitudes of some of her constituents.
On the other hand, her admitted ignorance speaks volumes for the education she received at senior high school and on up. One needs to pause and reflect on what kind of history is being taught in our schools and also wonder, especially in this day of politically correct everything, what else Johnstone and her peers may not know about.
To aspire to be a politician in the 21st century demands a knowledge base that is acquainted with the history and culture of the many immigrant and refugee groups who have settled throughout the country. Perhaps it is time to administer a geopolitical historical proficiency test to all prospective candidates for high public office so those who are abysmally ignorant may be discouraged.
Jon Bradley, Montreal. The case of NDP candidate Alex Johnstone is as vexing as it is perplexing. Here is the vice-chairwoman of the Hamilton-Wentworth District School Board, with her master of social work degree, so clueless of the gristly freight that comes with the foreboding name Auschwitz that she would palm off a telltale photo of the barrier that fenced-in the site with a silly “phallic” comment on Facebook.
But that’s what happens when we remove history as a subject from the high school curriculum — the astonishing spectacle of an otherwise educated public figure forced to admit she “didn’t know what Auschwitz was.”
Orest Slepokura. Strathmore, Alta. So the Holocaust discussion doesn’t happen until Grade 9? I’d have to guess that Alex Johnstone, Hamilton’s NDP candidate, never made it that far. Sounds like the best excuse for both her crude jokes and supposed ignorance.
Tim Harkema, Calgary. Anyone who spells Polish with two lls and who hasn’t heard of Auschwitz should not be running for political office. She should probably go back to school to get a little more education first.
Douglas Cornish, Ottawa. Most of my middle-school students have never heard of the Holocaust. They will not likely learn of it either, unless they have a teacher who is interested in teaching this subject. The obscene events of that time make for riveting reading and they never fail to make a (I suspect) lasting impression on students. It’s a shame school boards in Canada do not recognize the significance of this and do not follow Germany, for example, making Holocaust studies mandatory.
Janis Rosen, Toronto.