In the U.S., we have monuments to Nazi collaborators in New York, New Jersey, Illinois, Wisconsin and Ohio, among other states. In Europe, it’s worse.
Last week, NBC News obtained a recording revealing that a top administrator in a Texas school district instructed teachers to use books offering “opposing” perspectives on the Holocaust. The appalling notion of excusing or justifying genocide rightly sparked condemnations from politicians and human rights leaders.
Unfortunately, we don’t have to wonder about the chilling ramifications of both-sides-ing the Holocaust — it’s already happening.
n the U.S., we have monuments to Nazi collaborators in New York, New Jersey, Illinois, Wisconsin and Ohio, among other states. In Europe, it’s worse. Parades honoring Holocaust perpetrators are held in European capitals, where veterans of Nazi divisions that exterminated Jews and Roma are feted as heroes. In countries like Hungary and Lithuania, the war on Holocaust history is already being waged across school curriculums, literature and museums and in the courts. Book bansare becoming increasingly prevalent. Poland and Ukraine already have laws making it illegal to rebut distortion over Holocaust participation; another is being developed in Lithuania.
This goes beyond forgetting the Holocaust; it’s about raising entire generations to view perpetrators as heroes.