A U.S. House bill proposes additional funding to the Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C., to create online education programs for teachers.
The Never Again Education Act, introduced by U.S. Rep. Carolyn Maloney, D-N.Y., would grant the museum $10 million over the course of five years to augment existing exhibit material and make it accessible online. The bill would also fund lesson guides and workshops for teachers on how to incorporate Holocaust education into state and local standards.
House lawmakers, including U.S. Rep. Scott Tipton, R-Cortez, passed the bill almost unanimously Monday, International Holocaust Remembrance Day and the 75th anniversary of Auschwitz’s liberation.
“On International Holocaust Remembrance Day, we are reminded of the evils that existed in the last century and the lingering pains felt 75 years later,” Tipton said in a news release.
But many Jewish people continue to live in fear because of an increase in attacks on Jewish places of worship, Tipton said.
Esther Peterseil, a 95-year-old Holocaust survivor, spoke to members of the press and the bill’s sponsors before the vote.
“The only dream of mine is to have a safe place where a Jew cannot be attacked,” but Jews are now afraid of wearing religious symbols in public, given the rise in anti-Semitic attacks across the United States over recent years, Peterseil said.
She called on lawmakers in Congress to “close all the gates to hate,” and the Never Again Education Act can make that happen, Peterseil said.
She also quoted philosopher and writer George Santayana’s famous line, “those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it,” and the statement is just as meaningful today, Peterseil said.
Maloney said the Holocaust was a horror that our “nuclear-armed world can’t afford to repeat.”
There were 1,871 recorded anti-Semitic incidents in the United States in 2018, according to a report from the Anti-Defamation League, an international Jewish nonprofit organization.
Another study released in 2018 found that two-thirds of American millennials can’t identify what Auschwitz is, according to the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany.
Rocco Fuschetto, superintendent of the Ignacio School District, said the district would use any material available online to augment the book chapter they typically use to teach students.
“I am a firm believer it is important to teach and for children to understand the Holocaust,” Fuschetto said in a phone interview.
Animas High School would also take any resources readily available to teachers, said Libby Cowles, assistant head of the charter school.
Teachers design their own curriculum at Animas High School, and the Holocaust is often a part of the humanities courses. Facing History and Ourselves, a nonprofit that develops educational materials on prejudices and the Holocaust, is a resource the high school’s teachers use to develop lesson plans on this part of history.
But Cowles and some of her students have been to the Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C., and she said it was an “incredibly powerful resource and experience.”
Cowles is “excited to hear about this legislation,” since access to Smithsonian resources and research would benefit the students, she said.
“I commend my former colleagues in Congress for their important efforts and support ensuring students learn about the history of the Holocaust so we may never forget,” Polis said in a statement. “I firmly believe America is at its best when we unite against intolerance and hate, we reflect on our history and we fight for a world where everyone can live with dignity.”
The Never Again Education Act will now head to the U.S. Senate for a vote.
Emily Hayes is a graduate student at American University in Washington, D.C., and an intern for The Durango Herald.
