Learning about the Holocaust is compulsory for schoolchildren in England.

Should it be?

What I am about to write is anathema for most Jews. Nonetheless I think a reality check is needed.

Why should the Holocaust be a compulsory school subject?

Like most Jews I feel the anguish of the Holocaust. There are times when I am literally consumed with rage. I force myself to watch movies like "Schindler's List" or "Life is Beautiful" and to read books like "The Diary of Ann Frank" but it is almost unbearably painful for me.

I seethe at facile comparisons between present day Gaza and the Warsaw Ghetto. I do not call Holocaust deniers vermin only because it would be an affront to vermin.

But you know what is worse than Holocaust denial?

It is Holocaust indifference.

"How," I ask myself, "CAN people be indifferent to an event that continues to cause us so much suffering?"

But guess what? Life goes on. History goes on. An English schoolboy in 2008 may find the Holocaust no more interesting than the rest of his school history curriculum. To him it may be nothing more than facts to be remembered and regurgitated at exam time.

I cannot force that schoolboy to feel what I feel when I contemplate the Holocaust.

Here is a hard truth. I suspect most people today react to the Holocaust the way I react to the Armenian genocide. When confronted with it my reaction is "This is awful. This is terrible. The Turks are worse than the Germans. They won’t even acknowledge what they did to the Armenians. It's almost time for the cricket."

I can understand why my reaction would disgust an Armenian. But there it is.

We cannot live everybody else's tragedies. Anybody who pretends they can is either insane or soon will be.

And likewise I cannot condemn people who refuse to live ours.

So, no, I do not think the Holocaust should be a compulsory curriculum item. I think it should be there for those who are interested.

Yes...put it into their hearts.
If we dont the events will cycle back and holocaust will begin all over again

"Learning about the Holocaust is compulsory for schoolchildren in England."

Whilst it may be a useful component of a specific ethics course or getting a mention in the history syllabus (as I learned about it, at school in England), I do not see it as so significant to warrant being a specific subject itself.

Yes, I think it depend on context - if modern history is a compulsory subject, then I'd have thought that World War Two - and by extension, the holocaust, was a necessary topic.
I don't think anybody can have a reasonable knowledge of modern history without a passing acquantance with the scale and politics of the two world wars.

If modern history isn't deemed a compulsory subject, then no, I guess I don't see it as necessary. If the students aren't learning about world war two and world history, then regardless of the significance of the holocaust, I don't think it can be divorced from the context of history.

That being said, any modern history syllabus would be completely inadequate without it.

It was one of the most significant events of twentieth century history, and it impossible to deeply and critically understand the subsequent history of the Middle East without understanding the nature of *it*. Even if you sympathise entirely with the Palestinians.

A poster who's name will remain, well,nameless, was posting his "holohoax" links and theories here recently. It took a New York minute to see that they were fallacious, but to do so, one needed to have:
1. half a brain
2. a, say, Year Ten knowledge of history, and, most importantly
3. a rudimentary understanding of how historians collect and collate and analyse historical evidence.

Lots of people have less than half a brain. Most people have a year ten knowledge of history. Few people have the critical skills history requires. This is a losing battle, and I think we've got to pump our kids full of *more* of proper history, not less. It's easy for the less brainy kids to come out the other side of the education system and get pumped full of internet-assembled conspiracy theories while believing themselves to be equipped with an "open mind".

In answer to your moral quandaries Steven, I'd say that it is very hard to hold proper tragedy in our hearts for any length of time. I can't really contemplate the holocaust. I can't really contemplate Dafur, or Ethiopia during the famine. Or the Great War. Or Stalin. And for the vast majority of the time I forget about all this stuff and watch TV shows from the UK on YouTube and think about my boyfriend. But every now and then I give it a go, and I know it makes me a better person, and I think if we all do it - including people with actual power - then it makes the world a better place.

Is what I reckon.

Steven, perhaps the Brits feel the need to make it compulsory lest their part in the firestorm responses in Hamburg, Dresden etc ever be questioned?

Is it in the Oz context more relevant than a study of Pol Pot these days? Or the current ethnic genocide in Zimbabwe?

Another topic perhaps; when is it OK to expose our kids(Ruddian usage) to the horrors of life? 12? 18? When are THEY mature enough?

I agree, it(holocaust study) should not be compulsory, but it is vital for each of us sometime to confront the subject of 'evil'.