Anne Hirschle - July 21, 2006
Thoughts on Holocaust Education
Just one last question.
Yes.
Do you think it's important today to talk about the Holocaust? I mean, you just said that you didn't think...
Yes, I, I think,
...there were many lesson learned from it, but...
I think that it is very important, but I also have some hesitation. I don't know whether it was in England that I thought this-that there could be a little overkill. That um, people are getting a little-I think in-was it in England or here where-I, I'm getting mixed up now, but I may have-I go back to England quite a bit and I, I think there I heard that they were having, you know, programs and lectures and whole-the school curriculum was being-was revolving around this for a certain time and that there, there was a little um, resentment that perhaps this was a little overkill. But I do think it's important. I don't know. I'm not an educator. I, I, I don't know how, how it affects children, but I think they definitely should, should know about it. Um, I, I had one very interesting experience, I went to the Holocaust Museum here in Bloomfield Hills and um, there was a class of black kids-inner city kids-this is Bloomfield Hills...
Hm.
...black kids. They were being shown around the museum and they were totally disinterested. They were chewing gum, they were-they had their-they were typical teenagers. They had their backs to the exhibits, they were totally disinterested. And then at the end of going around the museum they were all taken to a room where a woman survivor spoke to them. And this bunch of kids who had been totally disinterested, you know, Bloomfield Hills was already-this was not their normal environment...
Right.
...and uh, and I thought maybe it hadn't been handled very well, this little tour of the museum. And this woman started speaking to them and told them that she had been their age when she was in a camp. She showed them her, her...
Tattoo.
...number. She told them about losing her brother there and how they had no water and some things and all of a sudden this group of kids who had been so disinterested were totally attentive. Um, their eyes got big, they listened to this woman whose English was not very good, but uh, her presentation, I thought, was not that good but apparently it was excellent because they were attentive. They were in awe, they asked questions. "You mean you, you were our age and they didn't give you water and, and stuff like that?" And the whole visit to the museum had been a total loss until they got into this room.
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