Making genocide and Holocaust education mandatory

With newspapers reporting an increase in religious and cultural intolerance and hate crimes, it is refreshing to see the Rhode Island General Assembly pass resolutions condemning the systematic and barbarous murder of Armenians and Jews. 

On April 24, Armenians across the nation stopped to remember the Ottoman authorities’ eight-year brutal campaign, taking place 100 years ago, to eliminate their ethnic group from its homeland in what is now Turkey. Both chambers of the Rhode Island General Assembly passed resolutions calling this day “Armenian Genocide Remembrance Day” and urging President Obama and Congress to officially recognize the genocide, which resulted in the estimated death of 1.5 million Armenians and to make restitution for the loss of lives, those who endured slavery, starvation, torture, unlawful deportations and confiscated properties.

Taking responsibility

for your actions   

On April 6, it was a personal and professional triumph for Rep. Katherine S. Kazarian, a fourth-generation Armenian-American, to take the lead in sponsoring Rhode Island’s House resolution to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide of 1915.  

 “The only thing worse than trying to eliminate an entire generation and culture is to deny that such a genocide ever took place,” said Kazarian.  “For the past 100 years, the government of Turkey has continually refused to acknowledge their part in the ethnic cleansing of the Armenian people,” she said. Until the Armenian genocide is recognized by the government of Turkey, Kazarian promised to return to the State House every year to keep the issue alive.

Rhode Island Attorney General Peter Kilmartin said, “On this 100th anniversary, it is more important than ever to remember the horror and tragedy that the Armenian people went through, and it is long overdue that as a nation, we recognize the Armenian genocide.  Through recognition, vigilance and education, this type of history will cease to repeat itself.

“There are many parallels between the Armenian genocide and the Holocaust carried out by Adolf Hitler, which ultimately killed 6 million Jews,” said the Attorney General, stressing that the Armenian genocide served as an example for Hitler, who used the lack of consequences for the perpetrators of the genocide as encouragement for the Nazis in planning the Holocaust

“When giving a speech to Nazi leaders one week before the invasion of Poland, which effectively began World War II, Hitler reportedly noted, ‘who, after all, speaks today of the annihilation of the Armenians?’ ” said Kilmartin.

Eradicating religious

and cultural bigotry

Marking the 70th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, Buchenwald, Dachau and Bergen-Belsen concentration camps, Rep. Mia Ackerman submitted a resolution commemorating Holocaust Remembrance Day (Yom HaShoah) and the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising of 1943. The resolution was passed by both the House and the Senate.

“The citizens of Rhode Island have a rich tradition of fighting those who would trample individual liberty and human dignity,” said Ackerman. “We must never allow anyone to forget the time when a handful of evil people tried to turn the earth into a graveyard by systematically exterminating an entire race of people.”

According to the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany, by 2020 there will be only 67,000 Holocaust survivors left, 57 percent of whom will be at least 85 years old.

 How can the story of the horrific Holocaust be told to the younger generation when the eye witnesses are dying?

Andy Hollinger, director of communications for the Washington, D.C.-based U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, makes an obvious comment.  “No one who did not live through the Holocaust can experience its horrors, he says, noting that “Holocaust survivors are our best teachers.”

Today, about 80 Holocaust survivors are still telling their stories and working to educate new generations about this history at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum.

“When they are no longer here we will rely on the collections – artifacts, documents, photographs, films and other materials to tell this story,” says Hollinger, noting that the museum is “racing to collect the evidence of the Holocaust.”

“We’re working in 50 countries on six continents to ensure this proof [witness testimonies, artifacts and documents] is secured, preserved and made available through exhibitions and, increasingly, digitally,” adds Hollinger. 

Marty Cooper, community relations director of the Jewish Alliance of Greater Rhode, believes it is “vitally important that the next generations learn about the Holocaust and other genocides and atrocities that have taken place and continue to take place.”  He calls for genocide education to be mandatory in Rhode Island and part of the middle and high school curriculum. 

One of the great lessons we can learn from the Holocaust and Armenian genocide is that hatred cannot go unchallenged. It must be immediately confronted wherever it emerges, by governments, religious leaders, nonprofit and business organizations and most important by each and every one of us. We must avow that these horrendous atrocities will never happen again to future generations.  

HERB WEISS, LRI ’12, is a Pawtucket writer who covers aging, health care and medical issues.  He can be reached at hweissri@aol.com.