Today is Yom HaShoah – Holocaust Remembrance Day. All over the world, people will gather at memorial services, light candles, sing songs of remembrance, and most importantly, survivors of the Holocaust will speak, bearing witness to what they lived through and giving voice to those who perished. As educators and as parents, I think it is important to teach children about the Holocaust both as a defining historical event, as well as to stimulate discussions about morality, bigotry, injustice, and genocide.

The New York Times recently posted an article about Public School 86 in the Bronx where 32 fifth and sixth graders are preparing to go on a trip to Germany from April 25 to May 2. Their itinerary includes a tour of Dachau – a Nazi concentration camp where thousands of people were killed. School principal Sheldon Benardo, who will accompany the students, says he visited Dachau himself in 1990 and is “concerned about the kids’ reactions” – especially to the barbed wire and ovens which he found frightening. I can’t say that I blame him. I think elementary-school-aged children are too young to be visiting a concentration camp. Part of me hopes these children will indeed be too young to appreciate the full magnitude of the horror that took place where they will be standing.

A more age-appropriate way to teach children about the Holocaust can be found using curriculum resources from Facing History and Ourselves. Here’s a brief description from their website:  “At the heart of our work is the resource book Facing History and Ourselves: Holocaust and Human Behavior, which explores the consequences of hatred. Students all over the world learn to recognize bigotry and indifference. They also meet exemplars of courage and compassion in the face of injustice and see that their own daily choices can have major impacts and perhaps even be a critical link to a safer future.” I highly recommend visiting their site and learning more.

On a personal note, I can’t remember how old I was when I first learned about the Holocaust, or when I found out that my maternal grandparents were both survivors. I know I was very young, and being a sensitive and impressionable child, it didn’t take long for me to become obsessed with finding out everything I possibly could on the subject. I specifically remember as a fourth grader sitting alone on the floor in the corner of the school library during “library time,” and week after week I’d pull out and thumb through the same hard-cover book on the Holocaust. It was the only one I could find that had a lot of pictures. So I silently stared into the eyes of emaciated Jewish children begging for food on the streets of the ghettos, and slowly turned to the most horrible page where dead bodies lay piled on top of each other in a pit, some with their eyes still open, and wondered if my great-grandparents were buried somewhere in that pile. It was horribly terrifying, and way too much for a 9 year old child to have to process.

As a senior in high school, I had the opportunity to participate in The March of the Living - an annual educational program that brings high school students from around the world to Poland to learn about the Holocaust. On Yom HaShoah, thousands march silently from Auschwitz to Birkenau, tracing the footsteps of concentration camp prisoners who walked that path to their deaths. It is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity that I chose to decline. Being deeply affected by all the books I read, movies I watched, museum exhibits and memorials I visited, and Holocaust survivors I listened to, I knew that actually going to Auschwitz and Birkenau – camps where members of my family had been enslaved and murdered - would be too much. I didn’t feel ready. I’m not sure if I will ever feel ready. But I will always remember.

takepart in reading testimonials written by March of the Living Participants. Explore Facing History and Ourselves’ extensive online resources. Or, do what I’ll be doing tonight: watch Schindler’s List on DVD.

(Photo: yeowatzup’s flickr photosteam/Creative Commons)