The Agenda with Steve Paikin (Audio) - Should We Re-Examine Holocaust Education?

Episode Date: November 5, 2024

In a time where Jews are the most represented group in reported hate crimes in Canada, learning about the history of the Holocaust is essential. How do we ensure that people have an accurate understanding of this dark period of history, and what will educators do differently when there are no survivors left to tell their stories firsthand?See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In a time where Jews are the most represented group in reported hate crimes in Canada, learning about the history of the Holocaust is essential. How do we ensure that people have an accurate understanding of this dark period of history, and what will educators do differently when there are no survivors left to tell their stories firsthand? For more, we are joined by Dara Solomon. She is Executive Director of the Toronto Holocaust Museum. Michelle Gleed Goldstein, founder of Carrying Holocaust Testimony. Shelley Laskin, Toronto District School Board trustee for Ward 8,

that's Eglinton Lawrence and Toronto St. Paul's. And Marilyn Sinclair, founder of Liberation 75. And I want to thank all four of you for joining us here at TVO tonight for an important and timely discussion. And Shelley, I want to start with you because we want to start with our school system. Last year, the Ontario government announced that they wanted to expand mandatory learning about the Holocaust for grade 10 history that will come into effect next year. Give us some of the background.

How did that come to be? Well, back in 2020, we did a motion at the Toronto District School Board for the importance of genocide education. It really is important in our diverse system to speak about the inclusion and have kids learn history so we, frankly, learn how to combat hatred in all its forms in our schools. And it started with the grade six. We were really pleased about that. And we're looking forward to grade 10 as well.

How did you convince the Minister of Education to do it? Well, it wasn't my personal convincing of the Minister of Education. If that was the case, I would have had a long list of what I would have asked of the minister. But I really think it was a combination of just what was happening in the States at the time. It was a Trump election. And it was a combination of just what was happening in the States at the time. It was a Trump election and it was a combination of what was happening here too as issues of

anti-Semitism continued to rise. Dara, grade six, learning about genocide. How much detail can you get into? So we introduced the Holocaust in age-appropriate ways and really in grade six we're introducing who Jews are, who Jews are as Canadians and what how did Canada respond to the Holocaust during that time and how did the survivors who ended up building their lives in Canada contribute to Canadian society. So we really don't go into the detail of the genocide it's really who Jews are,

anti-Semitism in Canada during that time in the 1930s, but we don't go into great detail about concentration camps. It's more about separation from family and introducing it in ways that make sense for a 10, 11-year-old. Which raises the question for Marilyn. How young is too young to start learning about this? We like grade 6, although there are many organizations that will teach about the Holocaust in younger grades, particularly in the United States and a couple of the states. But they do it in very sensitive ways.

Like Dara said, talking about separation of parents and children, sometimes talking about the separation of a child and their dog. So for instance, USC Shoah Foundation has a great program called LALA that they start in grade two. And it really hinges on that experience of a boy with his dog. But we think that grade six is a really good place to start Holocaust education. Your group's called Liberation 75. What do you guys do?

We teach about the Holocaust. Our priority is really supporting the grade six curriculum this year, educating the teachers about how to teach about this challenging subject. We really want the teachers to teach about it. There is no curriculum police, so even though they're supposed to teach about this challenging subject. We really want the teachers to teach about it. There is no curriculum police. So even though they're supposed to teach about it,

they don't have to technically. So what we have done is we've launched a book program. We actually use Cathy Kaser's book, To Hope and Back, which is the story of the St. Louis, which is very good for grade six audience. And it talks about who Jews are, their immigration policy in Canada during World War II.

You need to take another 30 seconds and just tell everybody who doesn't know about the story of the St. Louis which was a ship with a tragic story. Yes, in 1938 about 900 Jews were on a ship from Europe to come to a safe, had a safe passage to Cuba where they had entry visas. Cuba decided not to honour the entry visas and the ship, the captain of the ship, who was later honoured as a Righteous Among Nations, tried to find a port that would take the ship, including Canada. And Canada at that time's immigration policy when when it came to Jews, was none is too many. They sent the ship back.

One third of the passengers of the ship ended up dying in camps and in various situations in Europe. And Canada since apologized for not allowing the Jewish refugees into Canada. So this was a wonderful story about the Jews who were on the ship through the eyes of the children, so that the children in our school system can relate were on the ship through the eyes of the children so that the children in our school system can relate to them and through the eyes of the captain who worked very, very hard to save this boatload of Jews against the Nazi regime. Michelle, tell me about Carrying Holocaust Testimony.

What's your mission? Our organization is, it empowers descendants of Holocaust survivors to share their family history in schools. We film an interview between the survivor and the descendant, and they use that interview in combination with their own personal history of growing up in the shadows of the Holocaust and photographs and artifacts that they have to go into schools, share the survivor testimony. And it's really a program designed to fill in for survivor testimony in a world where

we no longer have survivors. And we feel it's very important to enhance Holocaust education with that survivor testimony to really allow students to get a meaningful understanding of what happened, to make sense of the numbers of the Holocaust, and to really understand the importance of learning that history. We have an example of some of your work.

Shall we take a look at this, Sheldon? If you would, let's roll the clip here. When you finally arrived in Auschwitz-Birkenau and they opened the doors, what did you see? What was it like? What was going on? Train stopped and waited for a while. Then all of a sudden the doors were swung open. I looked out and there was barbed wire on the other side.

This was a graveled sort of yard in front. There were some other railroad tracks further away. Then all of a sudden I saw this large group of, what I looked at that time as, they having pajamas on, you know, blue and gray striped pajamas with little round hats who came started swarming in and started to scream at the top of their voices to have everybody out out of boxcars. It was chaos. That's you and your dad Bill. Yes. How we all at this table know that there are

many Holocaust survivors who do not want to talk about those experiences. How did you convince him to go on camera and discuss? Well my father didn't talk about it for many many years until one of my sisters asked him why we don't have grandparents and at that point he felt the need to start talking about it and he did take us back to Europe shortly after that to the places where these events occurred, shared his history with us and then he became quite a prolific speaker in our community. And I think he found some satisfaction in it.

And I think for some people, it's very hard to dig up that history. And certainly, every time he shared it, it was very difficult for him. But at the same time, he felt he was memorializing his parents and his sibling, who he had lost, and that he was trying to make the world a better place in the future

by educating students about the Holocaust. So I think he found it difficult but satisfying. And so he was happy to do this project, and he was very concerned about what was going to happen when the survivors couldn't speak anymore. So really, it came out of his initiative to do something for the future.

Shelley, back to you on the education system. We want our teachers nowadays to be experts in everything. They got to know how to teach all the basic core subjects, et cetera, et cetera, and financial literacy and home economics and the whole nine yards. This is very heavy subject matter. How do you know that teachers are adequately prepared to teach this kind of subject matter? Well, thank goodness we have these organizations that exist to help prepare. But in actual fact, I would say that it's very difficult to add teachers to be subject

matter experts when there is no mandated professional learning provided. And one of the voids I think still with the ministry it's great to have the curriculum but I also think there should be mandated professional learning and release time because teachers do so much on their own time that if the government is serious about educating our kids against all forms of hate, then it really should be part of a professional activity day curriculum or another kind of release time for mandatory education.

I have a hunch Dara not only agrees with that but can think of a place that teachers and students should go to learn all about this. You want to tell us about what you're doing? Yes, so actually last week we had 130 grade six teachers from across the province come to the Toronto Holocaust Museum for a full day of learning with the museum team and partners, the Asreeli Memoirs Program

and Facing History and ourselves. And these teachers came as far away as Thunder Bay and Moosonee and release time was given and covered, which made, you know, the incentive was there to come. And they not only learned about the Holocaust, a deep dive into the Holocaust, but really learned about who Jews are as people and as Canadians, which is essential to this learning at grade six. And we also did a piece on contemporary anti-Semitism.

So they understand what the Jewish community is going through today and making those connections between the Holocaust and our current moment. And it was fantastic. And we offer a number of ongoing workshops for students and for people further afield outside of the GTA. We do a lot of online training. We just created a brand new virtual experience of the museum

for students that wouldn't be able to come because it's too far away, specifically built around this new grade six curriculum. And we're there to support the teachers and make sure they feel confident in teaching this challenging history. Well, we do like empirically provable facts on this program, and I'm going to introduce some here. And they are, what should we say? These facts suggest that you all have a lot of work still to do.

Here's some polling. Leger, the polling firm from Quebec, did some polling for the Association of Canadian Studies earlier this year. And the question was, who agrees with the idea that the Holocaust was exaggerated? 16% of Canadians surveyed from the ages 18 to 24 agree with the statement that the Holocaust was exaggerated. Only 2% of Canadians 65 and older, suggesting that the further you get away from this event,

the more trouble we've got. And in case you thought things were better here than in the United States, no. 15% of Americans age 18 to 29 agree with that statement that the Holocaust was exaggerated, practically the same number as us. And additionally, 27% of Canadians 18 to 24 say fewer than six million Jews were killed.

And the number six million Jews were killed. And the number six million Jews is one of the most documented genocides in the history of the world. So the fact that more than a quarter of the people surveyed between ages 18 of 24 don't believe that many were killed is, Marilyn, disquieting. What explains this ignorance? It's a really good question, Steve. I think, first of all, we have to ask, where are people learning about the Holocaust? So when we did our study in 2021, we found that 42% of students said that they learned about the Holocaust from social media.

So we know that's a very bad place for people to learn about the Holocaust. So that contributes to that. We also have a lot of new immigrant populations who come from countries where they don't learn about the Holocaust in their school systems. So we have that to contend with. We have the fact that it was only implemented into the curriculum in grade six this past September.

So we're dealing with a very small cohort of people who have officially learned about the Holocaust. So where are dealing with a very small cohort of people who have officially learned about the Holocaust. So where are people learning about it? They learn about it from teachers who have embraced the stories of the Holocaust because of their own interest in it or social media or movies and some of the movies that are out there like The Boy in the Striped Pajamas are very bad movies and they've been widely watched and widely taught from in classrooms.

You've got me interested here because I saw that movie, coincidentally, just last week, The Boy in the Striped Pajamas. What don't you like about it? Well, it's not just me. I'm quoting the experts in the field who don't like it. I personally don't like it too. At the end of the movie, who do you cry for?

You cry for the German child who dies. So the whole thing is the narrative from the perspective of the perpetrator, not the victim, is one. And two, it's grossly false, as if people had autonomy within the camps to go and play in the yard and meet their friends at a fence.

It's just a bad movie all around. within the camps to go and play in the yard and meet their friends at a fence. It's just a bad movie all around. Okay. Michelle, follow up if you would on why there seems to be so much apparent disbelief among younger people in particular. What's going on? Well, I think that they're seeing a lot of anti-Semitism on social media. They're seeing a lot of it on gaming sites and

other places where they're socializing and they're being, they're not hearing the other side of the story. They're only learning the antisemitism. That's what's in their face and we haven't had the opportunity enough to get in to formally educate them. You know, I know there is a belief that education can solve all of our problems, but I don't know if education can compete with social media. What do you think? It's a good question. I think we have a lot of work to do. I think the government has a lot of work to do in terms of curbing social media and all the misinformation and disinformation that's on there, because I agree with you.

The amount of time the kids spend on there is really dangerous. And education alone can't counter it. We need parent education as well. And we need the government to step in and put some kinds of controls in place to stop all the hatred that's on social media. Shelley, I don't frankly know what the population of the Greater Toronto Area is.

I guess it's probably about five or six million. There's 300,000 Jews in Canada. Right, 0.2%. Yeah, I mean it's a statistically insignificant number. 15 million Jews in a world of 8 billion people. Right. There are a lot of people who don't know any Jews. Does that make it difficult to change the narrative here?

I do, but I think education goes beyond content. So it's beyond content of the Holocaust. It's really a lot about media literacy and critical thinking. And those are the skills that really need to be taught so that when kids hear information, they can actually think for themselves and have critical understanding. So content on the Holocaust is one thing, but educating kids to be critical thinkers and questioning and understanding and then delving more and then which resources are the resources to look up and that's really part of the challenge when there is so much information out

there discerning which is the information and that's why these organizations exist frankly because we know they're credible sources of information for public education system. Okay, Marilyn, you're ready for a very tricky question here? Sure. Do you see people invoking the Holocaust to make a point, and at times it's inappropriate for them to do so?

Absolutely. And it's getting worse. It's not getting better. And when you listen to people, even just out on the streets, it seems everything is a holocaust right now. Everything is a genocide. Everything. People are oppressed. You know, my children once said they were oppressed because they had to put their clothes in the laundry chute. It absolutely is true and it's very difficult, I think, for all of us who are in this space to make sure that people, first of all, like Dara and Shelley say, know who are Jews and the experience of the Jews, to understand anti-Semitism, to understand what a genocide

is and to understand what the Holocaust was, that it was a singular event in history, the greatest genocide in history, the first industrialized murder in the world. The kids need to understand that, because language can become very, very loose and very dangerous. I want to pick up on that with you. We often hear people use the word

Holocaust to mean a terrible event. You heard about, you know, when I was a kid during the Cold War, they talked about a nuclear holocaust, that kind of thing. But Marilyn just used the expression the holocaust, as in it is one thing, one thing only, and that word should not be used for anything else. Do you agree with that?

I do, I do. I think that's where you start getting Holocaust misinformation when you start using analogies with the Holocaust. We need to make sure that the students understand that the Holocaust was the systematic killing of the Jews of Europe. One in three Jews were murdered during

the Holocaust. Like these facts really matter and if we don't sort of protect the facts and get them out there then people start using the language in a sloppy way that's frankly dangerous. Well let's follow up on that. Michelle if a young person came to you today and said I've heard something about this thing during World War II called the Holocaust, but I don't really know anything about it. If you had a minute to tell them, I hate to use this expression, but an elevator pitch

about what you need to know in a minute about the Holocaust, what would you tell them? I would tell them that the Holocaust, as Dara just said, was the systematic killing of the Jews and other targeted groups between 1939 and 1945, but also that the Holocaust didn't happen by accident. That it was an event that happened because people and groups and governments made choices or ignored choices that needed to be made and allowed this to happen and that it is important for them to

learn this history to make sure that that those kinds of things don't happen again that we hold ourselves our organizations and our governments accountable to fight against prejudice discrimination racism. Now it's interesting you didn't say anything there about gas chambers or cyclone B or concentration camps or... those are details you would not put into an initial response? Look, those are facts of the Holocaust that people need to know and understand. But when we talk about the lessons of the Holocaust, the reason to learn it is not

specifically to know that there was a gas chamber. I mean they need to know this history. It's not that they shouldn't but what they need to take away is what they can use for the future and I think what they need to take away is that they have a personal responsibility that this happened because people need to think about the environment they're in, the decisions they're making, the news they're getting and I think that's what they need to think about the environment they're in, the decisions they're making, the news they're getting. And I think that's what they need to take out of it. Marilyn, she also said it wasn't just Jews. Who else perished in the Holocaust that we need to know about?

The homosexuals, the Roma Sinti, the political prisoners, the intelligentsia. There were many other victims, but none of them were targeted like the Jews. The Jews were targeted for total extermination, and they were the only group that were targeted in that way. There is a lot of information you can find out online, Dara, about the Holocaust, and I suspect a ton of it is not accurate. What, I mean, at the risk of, as we try to educate people, what are things that people hear about that simply are not true? I think that everything is like a sound bite these days. And it just took two questions, three questions to find out like the definition of the Holocaust. But everybody's looking for these quick sound bites.

So I think those short memes that go viral, that sort of make light of the Holocaust, or maybe deny some of the facts of the Holocaust, people are attracted to those because they're short and history is actually complicated and you need to spend time on it. So I think that's some of the danger is just the flippant way that the Holocaust is mentioned in the current culture, especially on social media. Shelly, can I follow up with you on that in as much as, yes, we now have mandated Holocaust education

because the Ministry of Education made a decision that there ought to be. But knowing how many opinions there are in the Toronto school system, I can imagine that not everybody is thrilled. Maybe some teachers aren't thrilled about having to learn it. Maybe some parents aren't thrilled that their kids are going to have to learn it. What do you do about that? I think you persevere.

I think that there are some facts of history that are worth learning about as they apply to other situations that exist. When we made the first motion we asked about a genocide curriculum that included the Holocaust because there are other genocides that should be acknowledged. Canada has acknowledged many other genocides and other ones coming up later this month in November, the Haldimar, the Armenian genocide. These are important events in our public school system where we have diversity of cultures from around the world to feel that their stories are acknowledged

and the learnings from those stories in terms of making somebody feel that they're the other, othering someone simply because they may not look like you or pray like you or act like you. Those are the universal learnings of teaching of tolerance and inclusion, and that's why it's critically important in, if you believe in inclusion and if you believe in diversity, where we are different, our similarities in terms of being human, kindness, empathy, listening to others, acknowledging those differences, can really counter the amount of hate and the lack of tolerance.

And really, that's really a critical piece of education. Quick follow-up here. Do you sense much resistance from within the school system to having to teach this? I never had until after October 7. That's an honest answer. This was, we have, this is Holocaust, beginnings of Holocaust Education League.

And many of our high schools are privileged to invite survivors in and speak at assemblies. And this, I've been a trustee for many, many, many years. We have done Holocaust education for many, many, many years. This is the first time I ever got pushback on one of those assemblies. Okay, we could do a whole other show on this, but I'm going to make sure we don't today because I want to keep our eye on the prize here. And so we're going to do that right

now. Marilyn, what's going to happen? There are still survivors of the Holocaust among us. But there won't be for long. Mm-hmm. What happens then? So many organizations, including all of the ones at this table, are building resources based on testimony, which we know is one of the most powerful ways to teach about the Holocaust. We can't replace the survivors. We can try to make the best of it and we will. And by the way as Shelley just said there are still survivors who are willing to come and speak and who are excellent speakers but their numbers are tragically dwindling

and we are going to, I know Liberage 75, work with organizations from around the world and around the country and our city to be able to provide testimonies in different ways. So for instance, Dimensions in Testimony, which is a hologram-like way of teaching. What Michelle is doing is she is using testimonies without having to have the actual survivors. There are so many innovative ways in the experience at the Toronto Holocaust Museum where you can hear all kinds of survivors through their testimonies. It's very, very powerful.

And books that talk about experiences of people who have survived the Holocaust or in some cases didn't survive the Holocaust. Those are the tools that we're all going to be using. I remember when you guys had your opening day and Premier Ford was there with a number of his cabinet ministers. There were many federal and municipal politicians there as well. And I remember the look on the Premier's face when he saw some of the holographic testimony that is at your museum. And he was... yeah, it connected.

Yeah. Maybe for those who haven't been, just describe some of what that's about. Sure, so we built the museum for the next generation, knowing that the survivors weren't gonna be with us for much longer. And we know that at the core of strong Holocaust education is testimony and the access to hearing these first-person narratives.

So throughout the museum, there are 11 interactive testimony kiosks on touch screens. All the testimony has been curated into short clips and they're theme based and around questions because of inquiry based learning is how students learn best. So you go to a kiosk, so if you're in the pre-war section it your, what was Jewish ritual like in your home before the war? And you can hear, click on, you know, one of several testimonies of survivors talking about what celebrating Passover was like in 1920s, 1930s in the small little Polish town that they lived in. And then when you get to the area in the Holocaust, when you're talking about ghettoization and

the concentration camps, you hear testimony about, like we just heard from Bill, the arrival on the platform when the train arrived. Or Max Eisen reflecting on what it was like to get the tattoo on his arm. And these stories are so compelling. And we actually have seen students lying on the floor in front of the testimony station, which is great, because it shows how engaged and comfortable they are. And they're taking turns listening to different clips. And we hope that that range of experiences,

learning about the Holocaust and these different unique narratives, really impact them, because they feel like they've met met a survivor even though they're sadly not with us anymore. Max Eisen was a guest on this program a few years ago and he's since passed on but his book might be the best thing I've ever read on the Holocaust. It was absolutely incredible. Max Eisen, Google him and get his book. Absolutely. Sorry, what was it called? By Chance Alone. By Chance Alone get his book. Absolutely. Sorry, what was it called? By Chance Alone. By Chance Alone.

Thank you. Yeah, very good. Follow up, if you would. You're putting an archive together. What are your hopes for that archive as the survivors more and more start to die off? Our hope is that they'll get shown in schools that we'll be able to reach as many students as possible

with a personal narrative. That those personal narratives will be shared by a descendant who has that personal impact, that the students are often meeting a Jewish person, sharing their parents' story, that they have that experience, and that that will help students make meaning and remember what happened. Dara, I've got time for one more question.

And again, it's a bit of a hard one. If anybody watching this or listening to this right now encounters somebody who says, you know, I think the Holocaust was all exaggerated and I don't believe it ever happened, what do you do? I would invite them to the Toronto Holocaust Museum and take them on a tour through the galleries. And I think I would bring one of our remaining survivors with us

so that we could introduce them to a living part of this history and hear firsthand what happened to them and how their families were murdered and the rise of Nazism. I think they need a history lesson. Gotcha. I want to thank the four of you for coming into TVO tonight and helping us out with this, Mr. Director, if you would.

Let's say thank you to Michelle Gleed Goldstein, founder of Carrying Holocaust Testimony, and Marilyn Sinclair, the founder of Liberation 75. And on the other side of the table, Shelly Laskin, TDSB, Toronto District School Board Trustee for Ward 8, and Dara Solomon, Executive Director of the Toronto Holocaust Museum, which is where? The museum is located at 4588 Bathurst Street in North York, just Bathurst and Sheppard. Gotcha. Thanks so much, everybody.

Thank you. Thank you, Steve.