Holocaust Education Opt-Out By Arizona Schools Not Right: Teen

PHOENIX, AZ — Students in Arizona can get through 12 years of public school without ever having heard about the Holocaust, and a Phoenix area teen recently told the state school board that needs to change.

Steven Ugol, a 16-year-old from Scottsdale, has studied the genocide of 6 million Jews and millions of Roma, homosexuals and others under anti-Semitic Nazi leader Adolf Hitler, but at home with his mother — not the classroom.

He told the State Board of Education that Holocaust education should be a requirement for all public schools as part of a curricula teaching tolerance and appreciation for other cultures.

“Teaching the Holocaust in Arizona public schools is necessary," Ugol told school board, according to a story ob the AZfamily.com news website. “There is a patchwork of Holocaust and genocide curriculum, but not a statewide rule to teach it.”

The teen is among hundreds of Arizonans calling on state officials to require Holocaust education in public schools with no opt-outs. A petition on NationBuilder.com has about 1,300 signatures.

The push comes as anti-Semitic incidents are historically high and Holocaust literacy is at an all-time low. The Anti-Defamation League said in a report last fall that anti-Semitic incidents in 2017 was nearly 60 percent higher than the prior year, and the highest number reported since it began tracking incident data in 1970s.

Thirteen states now require Holocaust education, and bills are pending in another dozen states, including Arizona, according to the Pew Charitable Trusts. A Pew survey last year revealed large gaps in millennials’ understanding of the Holocaust — for example, two-thirds of them had never heard of Auschwitz, the largest of the Nazi death camps where 1 million Jews were gassed.

Char Ugol, who has made sure her son knows about World War II Germany and the Holocaust, told AZfamily “it’s important for everyone to study these things because it helps with tolerance, helps with understanding of other people.”

“And to leave it out is unacceptable.”

As years pass and the number of concentration camp survivors and liberators left to tell their stories dwindles, requiring Holocaust education has a new urgency, according to Michael Beller and Josh Kay, who founded Arizona Teaching the Holocaust. Their nonprofit works with state lawmakers on legislation requiring the State Board of Education require age- and grade-appropriate curricula on the Holocaust.

Tempe Kol Ami of Scottsdale Rabbi Jeremy Schneider agrees, telling Azfamily the stories of a generation who experienced the atrocities of the Holocaust first-hand shouldn’t die with them.

"Ignorance is the truest sense of knowledge, and so the only way to combat ignorance is to educate," Schneider said. “That is why our schools are the best place to teach about the Holocaust.”

Last year, the Arizona House of Representatives worked with the Phoenix Holocuast Association on the issue, but the resolution fell short — supporting, but not mandating Holocaust education.

Beller and Kay hope the issue will gain more traction this year, but wrote on their organization’s website: “Unfortunately, we need more statewide support to ensure that all children will be taught this important curricula in Arizona."