The teachers who chose to teach about the Holocaust after October 7: “We learned about ourselves as human beings, as a nation and as a society”

Holocaust Day is approaching and the question of the proper way to commemorate this year during wartime and after October 7 naturally arises. What topics will the various ceremonies deal with? Will there be images or topics that are too sensitive to learn? These questions and more are asked not only around the day’s marking, but in studying the subject of the Holocaust as part of high school history classes throughout the year.

The subject of the Holocaust is not a compulsory subject in history studies this year, as the Ministry of Education decided in October. The reason for the decision is requests from parents and students that Holocaust studies are a trigger after October 7.

After the public uproar that this decision caused, the Minister of Education Yoav Kish decided that the Holocaust chapter would be a mandatory chapter in the matriculation in history, because according to him, “Holocaust studies as part of the matriculation are significant and have added value that cannot be replaced.” At the same time, the decision that the subject of the Holocaust will remain as an option remains in place due to the time remaining until the matriculation exam that took place in April.

“It’s a complex decision and we debated whether, what and how to teach the subject this year,” she says Merav Busiana history teacher and 11th grade class teacher at the social high school in Haifa of the Dror Beti Shinoch network. “The fact that our students are from Haifa and the surrounding area, that is, a little far from the events, helped us decide to teach anyway.”

“The Holocaust is an event unparalleled in history, but the hatred and the desire to destroy us still exist today”

“On the contrary, my commitment to teaching the Holocaust chapter is gaining new validity,” he says Nahum Beslo To the question if he had a dilemma about studying the subject of the Holocaust this year. Baslow is a teacher for the fifth year after 33 years in various positions in the IDF, teaching at Ort Milton in Bat Yam. “The events of October 7 and the war sharpen the need to understand our events and our existence in this country. Understanding the meaning of the Holocaust is the basis for this.”

Both agree that it is impossible to teach the subject of the Holocaust without relating it to the students’ lives and dilemmas. “Because the war for our existence still exists, we are still fighting for our existence against enemies who want to destroy us,” Baslow says. “Of course, I am not interested in the students comparing October 7 to the Holocaust, because the Holocaust is an event unparalleled in human history,” he emphasizes. “But the hatred and the desire to destroy us still exists today, whether it is Iran and its metastases, Hamas and Hezbollah, as in the past the Nazis tried to destroy the entire Jewish people.”

Busian perceives the connection to the students’ lives differently from Baslow. “Especially since the war, we as a society and they as teenagers face extreme and moral dilemmas such as staying in Israel, enlisting in the IDF, the abductees, and in general – clarifying our role in the current period. The Holocaust period gives us an opening to learn about man and society in extreme situations, and to examine what moral dilemmas there were and how people and societies chose to deal with them.

“From learning about the Holocaust period, we learn about ourselves as human beings. I don’t always have an answer to all the questions, we mainly facilitate dialogue and try to give the students tools to answer the various questions themselves.”

According to Baslow, “In general, it is important to teach about the Holocaust, because until the 11th grade, the students learn only emotional learning from rituals or films and television series. There is meaning in learning the facts and the story itself. What does differ this year from last year is that the second line that runs through Holocaust studies is that ‘if we had a state, this would not have happened’. This year there is confusion around such a message. These are of course some of the students’ questions.”

The question of which visual images from the Holocaust to present to the students and which not, bothers them both. “I trust the students to be smart enough to separate events from history and now,” Busian says, “and on the other hand to connect where it is necessary to connect.” According to Beslo, “it certainly arouses some of the students and distracts from the main point.” At the same time, he emphasizes that “the emotional reactions to the photos are there every year. I didn’t feel anything in particular.

“Motivation for significant and especially combat service is increasing”

Baslow’s students took the matriculation exam in history that took place this month, and according to him, “they coped with it very well. I have never had a class that I did not pass with the highest level of readiness.” Busian’s students are preparing a project within the Ministry of Education’s external graduation alternative program – ‘Evaluation Pioneers’. The project is equivalent to an external high school diploma, and is graded by the school according to Ministry of Education criteria.

“As part of the project, the students chose different people from the war, such as Hasidic of Nations, rebels in the ghettos, and more, and learned about their lives with an emphasis on their moral dilemmas before, during and after the war,” Busian says, “then they presented in front of their classmates, and on Holocaust Day itself they will conduct workshops On the characters for layers 9-10.”

According to her, the focus on moral dilemmas and the way the project was prepared sharpen the link to the students’ lives. “First of all, the students themselves chose the character they are interested in learning about and presenting it. By choosing the character, it is possible to understand which dilemmas are more interesting to the student: are dilemmas around empathy and an actual act to protect minorities, such as for example in the character of a follower of the nations of the world? Or dilemmas around leadership during a crisis , as in the figure of rebels in the ghettos. Each of these choices reflects the student’s moral engagement in our society today, which is also at war.”

Moral dilemmas such as enlisting in the IDF also arose among Beslow’s students following the study of the Holocaust. I think that more than other years, the motivation for meaningful service, especially combat, is increasing, and I see the connection to Holocaust studies and October 7.”

The dilemma of the trip to Poland

Traditionally, Holocaust studies in high school also include the trip to Poland. In recent years, the trips have decreased or been canceled for a variety of reasons: the closures due to Corona, the sanctions of the teachers’ organization and the war of iron swords.

Last March, the Ministry of Education announced the renewal of youth missions to Poland this summer. Busian, who has been guiding trips to Poland for 15 years, wonders if this is the right move. “After all, apparently evacuated students won’t travel. So students from Sderot won’t travel and students from Haifa will? It’s already a trip that suffers from sectoralism, so there’s no need to add another category. The difficulty is greater in light of the fact that there haven’t been trips for four years.”

Baslow supports the return of the journeys. “I see importance in the journeys to the extermination camps and ghettos in Europe, and there is no doubt that only when you walk in those places where the Holocaust of our people took place do you feel and understand the economy of the wings of history.”

Busian has other alternatives for the journey she would like to take with the students. “I am aware that the students are very much waiting to see things there. On the other hand, I cannot ignore what happened and is happening here, and maybe it is right to have a journey in Israel as it is now. To see and meet society, to volunteer where necessary, to deal with the big questions of our society and to know stories different of October 7 and the reality of people since then. It may be that these days it is more important than the journey itself.”

“Learning sharpened the importance of being empathetic to others”

For Busian, the main importance in studying the Holocaust this year was refining the moral lessons, which are also relevant to the war years. “I’m glad we didn’t give up and learned about the Holocaust and World War II. It deepened our learning about ourselves as human beings, as a nation and as a society. The learning sharpened the importance of being empathetic to others, that our choices and our ability to take responsibility have great significance in shaping reality.”

Baslow sees the study of the Holocaust this year as an opportunity to deepen the broad context of the events of the war. “When I served in the IDF, I studied the history of the Middle East, in order to understand the environment in which we live. But another layer to understanding is to understand the essential connection between what happened over there in Europe, and life here in Israel.”

For Busian, it is important to mention Alex Danzig (76), a historian living in Nir Oz who trained hundreds of tour guides in Poland and is now kidnapped in Gaza. “On this holocaust day, it’s impossible not to mention Alex,” Busian says. “Alex is the son of Holocaust survivors and has been leading the issue of trips to Poland and the legacy of memory for many years. I hope that by the time the article is published all the abductees will be released, this is our highest human duty to them.”