Holocaust education can keep history from repeating

Dave Baxter,
Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

Canada must step up its efforts on Holocaust education and fight back against Holocaust misinformation, a prominent Jewish leader says, as a new study shows an increasing number of Canadians, and young people believe that the Nazi’s systematic murder of more than six million European Jews has been “exaggerated” over time.

“We are now on a trajectory, especially over the last 15 months in Canada and around the world, that if people don’t learn the lessons from the Holocaust, and how hate can poison society, the past can easily be repeated,” Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs (CIJA) vice-president for Manitoba and Saskatchewan Gustavo Zentner said on Tuesday.

“I truly hope that we are not even close to that, but hope alone will not save us, only actions will save us, and action starts with a commitment to ensure that the education is paramount.”

A survey done in May of 2024 by the Association of Canadian Studies asked Canadians if they agree or disagree with the statement, “I think the Holocaust was exaggerated.”

The study showed that 18% of Canadians surveyed between the ages of 18 and 24 years old agreed with the statement that the Holocaust was exaggerated, while another 15% of respondents ages 25 to 34 years old also agreed with that statement.

The study showed 8% of Canadians surveyed between 35 and 44 years old agreed with the statement, while another 11% of Canadians surveyed between 45 and 54 years old agreed, and said that all those percentages have gone up from previous similar surveys.

Zentner, whose chapter of CIJA represents and advocates for the more than 16,000 Jews currently living in Manitoba, and the approximately 5,000 Jews living in Saskatchewan, called the numbers “staggering” and said no one should mistakenly believe there has been exaggeration by any credible sources about the true scope of the Holocaust.

“What started based around intolerance and hate became a manufactured plan and the building of infrastructure to commit mass murder,” Zentner said. “It was industrial-scale genocide focused on the elimination of a people, and was supported by different government agencies, from transportation, to propaganda, to hateful education in the school systems to get citizens to be complicit.

“A hate-based regime was able to blame a segment of the population, and to engineer mass murder in order to try to exterminate a race.”

Those facts alone, according to Zentner, leave little room for “exaggeration,” and that is why he said his organization continues to be focused first and foremost on making sure the holocaust is taught to all segments of society accurately and properly in Canadian schools.

“On the education side, it is imperative to make sure that our kids and our young minds are aware of the implications and the risks associated with hate, with discrimination, and the atrocities that can come out of not having good educational foundations,” Zentner said.

Manitoba’s NDP government announced in May they would be mandating Holocaust education in Manitoba’s public schools beginning at the start of the 2024-25 school year, and would be working with the Jewish Heritage Centre to develop new curriculum and guidance for Holocaust education in schools.

“That education must be prominent throughout society and go beyond classrooms and curriculum,” Zentner added. “And that includes at places of Worship, and places of work and business, because it has to be a cross-societal effort.”

And with the rise in recent years in young people getting their information from online sources and from social media platforms, Zentner said there also have to be steps taken by governments in Canada to combat online disinformation and hate, and what he said can be the “distortion” of history online.

“Youth are consuming more data and info online, and many say that they are interested in learning more about the holocaust, but often do not know where to go and get this information,” he said. “We have a responsibility as a society to young people to provide credible information.”

He would also like to see more severe repercussions for online platforms that allow the spread of misinformation.

“There is a role for governments to play to make sure we hold online platforms accountable, and platforms should, at their own expense, be monitoring the information that they avail, and there should be legal liabilities and penalties for platforms that spew online hate,” he said.

“There is tangible action civic society can take to honour the lives that were lost, and to prevent history from repeating itself.”

Dave Baxter,
Local Journalism Initiative Reporter
Winnipeg Sun