Kids don’t know about the Holocaust because schools are pre-occupied with social justice

Published April 13, 2018 2:17pm ET



Thursday, on Holocaust Remembrance Day, as my Twitter began to fill with stories of near-death escapes or children killed too young in a concentration camp, it also filled with the story of a disappointing study, the reaction to which was just as bad. According to the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany, they interviewed 1,350 adults and found two-thirds of American millennials surveyed could not identify Auschwitz — the largest concentration camp where more than 1 million of Jews were exterminated — and 22 percent said they haven’t heard of the Holocaust or are not sure whether they’ve heard of it.

Albeit disturbing, even maddening, given the atrocity of the Holocaust itself and how indicative it was of Hitler’s deranged, anti-Semitic mind, it’s not shocking that young adults don’t know about the Holocaust or Auschwitz. Millennials, especially the younger ones, are really the first generation to receive an education that has placed more importance on social justice issues rather than an emphasis on history, language, math, and science. They’re the ones about whom the phrase “social justice warriors” was first coined. In the last two decades, there’s been a steady uptick in school administrators figuring out how they can “promote social justice.” This website provides multiple resources for teachers to integrate social justice issues into their curriculum but warns many kids could be offended if it’s not taught carefully.

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