No good answer to my question, as I figured. There’s an educator who won’t admit to historical fact. There’s no evidence he was asked to prioritize the Holocaust above other events in any way, or anything similar. What was reported doesn’t reflect anything like that on his part, but only that he would not recognize historical fact. So A) he’s a Holocaust denialist and doesn’t deserve to be involved in the education of children, or B) he’s too stupid to recognize that facts aren’t affected by the existence of people who disbelieve them, be they the Holocaust, the Norman conquest, dinosaurs, the moon landings, the curvature of the Earth, etc. etc., and he doesn’t deserve to educate children. Good thing they kicked him out. Hopefully he was reassigned to a suitable position as a janitor or the like.
It’s not large numbers per se that are motivating this. Some 7 million Congolese have been killed since the 1990s, and that’s not even getting into the colonial era. When did anybody commemorate any of that? And how many people remember total numbers of war dead (from WW2), as opposed to the “6 million” figure?
But the educator isn’t reported to have commented on any of those issues, or any similar issue.
Me either.
A whole lot of that nowadays. Science denial is a more pressing concern but no shortage of either.
Yeah, wasn’t well worded. I specified more clearly a couple of posts down
My bad I missed that. What you wrote is spot on.
Getting some mainstream attention
This gives the most detail I’ve seen
I guess B) stupid is the answer, but I was too harsh as he has tried to address and correct it. Still, that’s pretty stupid. I’m not sure what he was trying to say in that second email in particular. You might have thought he was confused or something in the first one. All he had to say was it is addressed in the basic history curriculum, plus in whatever additional ways, as he did later.
The Holocaust stand out is because one, it happened in the geographic heart of Western civilization, a tradition defined by changes in Judeo-Christian ethics. It happened in the heart of the old Holy Roman Empire, and as an integral part of the outcome of WWII marked perhaps the last major fork in the development of the West.
Two, it happened in relatively modern times. The slaughter of those who were political enemies of the Nazis reached it peak roughly 75 years ago (Mao’s crimes were more recent, however).
Last of all, it differs from Mao’s or Stalin’s crimes because the Nazis only industrialized the slaughter of Jews after it became clear to Hitler that the war was lost. Neither Stalin nor Mao slaughtered political enemies in their millions because it was the equivalent of an enraged, frustrated father kicking to death the most powerless member of his family, but that’s exactly what Hitler did.
The Holocaust was perverse on multiple levels, which is a big reason why this teacher’s denial is beyond offensive.
It seems they just gave him another job at the district level.
Nazi persecution of Jews and the process of mobilizing the state apparatus towards their systematic elimination began in 1933.
The first concentration camps began in 1933. By that point, Jews were beginning to be excluded from civil service jobs, put into ghettos, and quarantined from public life under the grounds they were a national security threat.
Violence, persecution, and the systemic killing and abuse of Jews by the Nazis was going on well before they thought the war was lost. It started in the early 1930’s and became official in 1933.
I just want to point out Dawud is correct in his assertion that “The Holocaust” generally refers only to the slaughter of European Jews by the Nazis, it’s also known as the Shoah. There are some who argue the definition should include Gypsies, Gays etc, but that is a minority position.
I’m a bit shocked to see people arguing that it is somehow ignorant to assert the above. This isn’t controversial stuff.
I don’t know how it is discussed/talked in Europe, but most of what I’ve read on the holocaust is talking victims of the holocaust as Jews.
If talking about Gypsies it’s referred to as the Romani Holocaust.
I wonder how the reparations to them are different from the reparations to Jews.
That would be a sum of zero dollars. The Gypsies always get the short end of the stick.
“The Federal Republic of Germany determined that all measures taken against Roma before 1943 were legitimate official measures against persons committing criminal acts, not the result of policy driven by racial prejudice.”
The US Holocaust Museum website has very good resources on the Porajmos or Romani Holocaust.
People haven’t disagreed with this. They have simply pointed out that the Holocaust, when taught in schools, generally is taught as the genocide of European Jews, and that the Nazis also killed 4-5 million other “undesirables”. In the context of what is being discussed (the school principal potentially saying that the Holocaust is not an undisputed fact) it is perfectly correct to point this out. It is how it is taught in American schools.
“It is not customary to only include Jewish deaths.” That’s what I read this as saying but if your point is that teachers generally include reference to the other victims of Nazi genocide then I accept your point.
I agree with your point in general. The specific term “Holocaust” with a capital H customarily refers to Jewish victims.
why Jewish victims are treated specially compared to Romani victims? Maybe more Jewish victims than Romani victims, but they may be said to be comparable. They are Jewish victims and “the others”, though. Because Jews are more organized?