Content area
Full text
In this powerfully argued article Paul Salmons focuses directly on the distinctive contribution that a historical approach to the study of the Holocaust makes to young people's education. Not only does he question the adequacy of objectives focused on eliciting purely emotional responses; he issues a strong warning that turning to the Holocaust in search of universal moral lessons -'lessons' that merely confirm what we already believe - risks serious distortion of the past. Citing widespread use of the Holocaust as a rhetorical device, Salmons' contention is that failure to engage with its historical and highly complex reality in fact leaves young people open to manipulation and coercion from those who would use the past to push their own social or political agendas. What he offers here is not merely a justification for the Holocaust's position as a compulsory element of the school history curriculum - but a fundamental defence of the place of history in school.
A group of students huddle together in Auschwitz-Birkenau, participating in a memorial service by which they are visibly moved. They light candles, listen attentively as the words of survivors are read out and join in sincere declarations of 'Never again'. Some say prayers. Some cry silently. A few hold on to each other for mutual support. Now they move away from the ruins of the crematoria and the gas chambers, slowly, with their teachers, down the ramp where, two generations earlier, hundreds of thousands of men, women, and children from all over Europe climbed out of cattle trucks and railway carriages, and walked to their deaths. As they leave, some shake their heads and wonder aloud, ? just don't understand how this was possible. I can't imagine how anyone could do this.'
Nearby, another teacher stands with his own group of students and overhears these conversations. Some months later he relates the story, and ruefully remarks that this must count as a somewhat unusual educational activity: we generally do not take our students out of school, and travel such long distances, for them not to understand something.1
This is not, of course, to suggest that students should stop visiting Auschwitz. Clearly such visits can be enormously powerful, and provide rich educational experiences. It is, however, to...