In April of 2007, there was a rumour circulating that history of the Holocaust was being dropped from school curriculum in the United Kingdom.
It was refuted then yet the emails are circulating still. I received such an email yesterday and, I know the person who sent it has their heart in the right place. For that I can only show appreciation.
Having said that, some of these rumours become damning and they are certainly never ending in the electronic universe of bits and bytes. The United Kingdom, from anything I can discern, has no intention of ever removing the Holocaust from its history lessons and, in fact, this bitter saga in our history is mandatory in the curriculum.
The rumour goes on the state that individual schools have dropped the Holocaust from their history lessons. While this may have been true, it was soon corrected in 2007/2008. The reasoning given then for dropping the instruction was to not offend Muslim students who have the belief that the Holocaust never happened.
I’ve been there.
That is, I have been inside the fenced walls of Dachau. I’ve been in the buildings that were designed to house 400 inmates and where there were 1600 men crammed into each. I’ve seen the photos in the public archive under the wary eye of German caretakers. I’ve stood at the ovens, on the railway lines and honoured those buried in mass graves mere metres from those ovens and rail lines.
I know the debilitating emotion of being surrounded by death… aching voices from a malevolent past drumming in my ears… images of piles of masticated men blistering my eyes… goose bumps as ghosts slipped along side me while I made my way around a place of death… indefinable despair and horror.
While the Muslim belief may well be that the Holocaust was a hoax (and they are entitled to believe what they wish), we also need to remind ourselves that there is an ulterior motive with regard to Jews.
There is nothing anyone can say to sway my belief.
I do not suppose for a moment the governments of the United Kingdom, the United States, Canada, Russia and France, all of whom liberated concentration camps throughout Europe, will ever be swayed . Nor will those Germans who to this day turn away with shame in their forlorn eyes from that awful time.
To my friend who sent me the email, thank you. Awareness must continue not only for this unforgiven event but for all atrosities against people the world over.
Fortunately, this is a hoax and she is right… we must indeed never forget.
