Friday, May 9, 2008

Denying the Holocaust - Campus & Education

Holocaust denial is an “other side” of history – ugly, reprehensible, and extremist – but an other side nonetheless. As time passes and fewer people can personally challenge these assertions, their campaign will only grow in intensity. To begin illustrating this notion, the impact of Holocaust denial on high school and college students cannot be definitively argued. At a Midwestern university when a history instructor used a class on the Napoleonic Wars to argue that the Holocaust was a propaganda hoax designed to vilify the Germans, and that the whole Holocaust story was a ploy to allow Jews to accumulate vast amounts of wealth. The instructor defended himself by arguing that he was presenting “two sides” because the book only offered the “orthodox view.” The school dismissed him on two accounts: teaching material that wasn’t relevant or of any “scholarly substance.” Some students argued that he had been treated unfairly because “he let us think” and “he brought articles that proved his point.” There was a feeling that somehow firing him violated that basic American ideal of fairness- that is, everyone has a right to speak his or her opinion (these students seemed to not grasp that a teacher has a responsibility to maintain some fidelity to the notion of truth).

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