Holocaust Remembrance Day

Editor,

In honor of Holocaust Remembrance Day I watched an interview on TV with a dozen high school juniors. I was surprised by how little they knew about the holocaust. They didn't know that Hitler was elected chancellor to Germany and that's how he came to power. They didn't know how many Jews were murdered in Germany during WWII. And not just Jews: Blacks, Gypsies, Russians, Catholics. These school kids couldn't even name one Concentration Camp.

In Germany high school kids are required to visit a concentration camp. They won't forget what happened in their country.

But what about our kids. We are afraid kids will feel uncomfortable if they are taught about the horrors of the past. Well, sometimes kids should feel uncomfortable. Don't you think the German kids feel uncomfortable when they go to a concentration camp? My son felt uncomfortable in elementary school because a kid made fun of him for being Jewish. Black kids feel uncomfortable when they are called names. LBGTQ kids feel uncomfortable when they are bullied. Kids need to feel uncomfortable to become compassionate. How else will they understand how hurtful their words are when they call other kids names?

Some schools are banning books so that kids won't feel uncomfortable. We are sanitizing history. We are coddling kids. These books encourage conversations about things that were done in the past, so that, hopefully, the past won't be repeated. Books like "The Diary of Anne Frank," "Maus," teach lessons. Educate. Do they make us feel uncomfortable? We should be uncomfortable about a lot of the things that took place in the past. Maybe if we understood the past we wouldn't have elected Trump, who supports White Supremacists and wanted to become a dictator. Who admired dictators throughout the world.

Education isn't always about the pretty in our past. Europeans came to this country and eliminated the indigenous people. When I was young we played Cowboys and Indians. And the Indians were the enemy. We didn't know the real history.

White people imported Black Africans and enslaved them. They didn't treat them like people. They were property. The U.S. went to war to steal land from Mexico. And now we don't want to let Mexican's into the U.S. Texas was their land first!

In the concentration camps parents made their children watch the horrors that were taking place. Why? They told them, "You survive and tell the world what happened here." I want all kids to know what happened in the past. When we say, "Never again!" I want it to mean something. I want every generation to know that we can do better. No more persecution of people who may not look like us, worship like us, love like us. Education is the only thing that can change the future.

– Jessica Barrett, Castro Valley