The importance of teaching kids about the Holocaust
Three years ago this weekend I celebrated my first Father’s Day by writing a letter to our 7-month-old son for the Forum on Faith. I am in awe with how our son has grown and how much the world around us has changed over the past three years. My ministry and my faith continue to evolve as my worldview changes.
My wife and I recently traveled to Amsterdam for a conference, and we brought our son along. While most of our free time was spent riding on canal boats and visiting every playground we could find, we did make time to visit one museum — the Anne Frank House.
Explaining the Holocaust to a 3-year-old in a way that was not too scary was not easy. I was surprised when — after we returned home — I overheard him describe the “serious museum” as one of the highlights of the trip: “the house where the people were living and the bad guys came and then the people died and then the bad guys died.”
I am often asked the appropriate age to start teaching children about the Holocaust, and now, as a parent, I appreciate the complexity of the question in a new way. With so much evil and darkness in the world, I would much rather keep our son focused on the good of humanity and away from the darkest moments of history.
And yet, most of us never hesitate to teach our children ancient stories about good triumphing over evil, often drawn from our sacred scriptures: the Israelites overcoming Pharaoh in the Exodus from Egypt; Noah and his ark and the conflict between Joseph and his brothers in the book of Genesis; or Judah and the Maccabees overcoming the Seleucids.
Not only that, this theme of good defeating evil is repeated in nearly every Disney movie ever made. So presumably, it is a theme that speaks to children.
Perhaps our historical proximity to the Holocaust causes squeamishness. Unlike ancient stories from scripture or fictional accounts on the silver screen, memories of the Holocaust may feel a little too recent, and a little too real. We may comfortably teach the story of Pharaoh ordering the murder of Israelite babies, but it is too soon to speak of similar Nazi efforts.
The ancient Greek playwright Euripides once wrote, “Whoso neglects learning in his youth, loses the past and is dead for the future.” Perhaps these words inspired the more recent philosopher George Santayana to write, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”
In other words, if we do not teach our children about the Holocaust, we may be condemned to repeat one of the darkest moments in human history.
The recently enacted Connecticut law requiring high schools to include the Holocaust and other genocides in Social Studies curricula will help our students learn about the past. Following three reported incidents of swastikas in Ridgefield’s Ballard Park, one of our favorite playgrounds, it would appear that not everyone in our world fully appreciates the impact of symbols of hatred.
Three years ago I could not imagine that I would be teaching our son about swastikas or Anne Frank. I still try to shield him from the hatred and violence that persists in our world, from the symbols of hatred that have appeared at his favorite playground.
We cannot forget or change what has happened in the past. But I believe learning from the past is one way we can work toward a better future. And so we teach our son the lessons of our faith:
Ani ma’amin… I believe with perfect faith that a better day will come, a day when bloodshed will be no more, when soldiers shall turn their swords into plowshares, their rifles into pruning hooks. A day when (as our liturgy proclaims) “when corruption and evil shall give way to integrity and goodness… (when all) will become one in spirit and one in friendship.”
On my first Father’s Day and again today I prayed to God, “M’kayeim Emunato leesheinei afar—Keeper of faith with those who sleep in the dust.” Help us to teach and to learn, to bring healing to the sick, freedom and justice to all in the world, support and comfort for all that together we may bring about a better world, free of hatred and bloodshed, filled with unity and peace. Amen.