Today is Holocaust Remembrance Day (Yom HaShoah), a day of remembrance for the Holocaust.
The Holocaust is not just a singular event of the past; every generation must make the commitment to “never again,” and that begins with education. A truly meaningful commitment to learning from and preventing atrocities like the Holocaust requires us to come together in the urgency of now -in combating censorship about our country’s history, in teaching about racism and the systems of anti-Black oppression, and in countering the patterns of hate in our nation and world today.
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau noted "“Yom HaShoah invites us to honour the courage and resilience of the survivors of the Shoah, many of whom chose Canada as their new home and have helped build the diverse and inclusive country we know today. In the decades since the end of the Second World War, survivors have reminded us time and time again of our collective responsibility to ensure the atrocities they endured are never forgotten and never repeated, including through Holocaust education, remembrance, and research.
Sadly, in recent years, Jewish communities in Canada and around the world have faced a disturbing rise in acts of antisemitism, including through the spread of online hate and disinformation. This is unacceptable."
The US-based racial justice group, Learning for Justice, seeks to honour the legacy of the Holocaust by questioning why so many U.S. public schools mandate Holocaust education while simultaneously banning or censoring other “hard histories” from the classroom in their latest article. “Teaching the Holocaust in schools as a singular event without understanding the context nor acknowledging the United States’ role and influence falsely removes the Shoah from a larger narrative of the intersection of racism, nativism, policy and society.”
Let's be sure we learn from history.
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