Opinion: Why BC's mandatory Holocaust education curriculum is much-needed
Written for Daily Hive by Nico Slobinsky, vice president of the pacific region for the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs, and Nina Krieger, executive director for the Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre.
This week, Vancouver’s Jewish community commemorates Kristallnacht, the Night of Broken Glass, which preceded one of the darkest chapters in history. On November 9 and 10, 1938, Nazi leaders unleashed a series of pogroms in Germany and Austria in which hundreds of synagogues and Jewish institutions were set ablaze, 7,500 businesses and homes were looted, and 30,000 Jewish men were sent to concentration camps.
This was a prelude to the Holocaust, which saw the murder of six million Jews.
We say never again, yet we see antisemitism reappear – again and again.
Despite representing less than 1% of Canada’s population, Jews remain the target of 67% of all crimes against religious communities and 14% of all reported hate crimes. Hate incidents targeting Jewish people in BC rose by 59% between 2019 and 2021.
The realities of antisemitism were seen by Canadians on October 7, when Hamas launched a terrorist attack that, in addition to thousands of injured and 220 abducted, ended in the murder of more than 1,400 Israelis – the largest loss of Jewish life in a single day since the Holocaust. One of the victims was 22-year-old Ben Mizrachi, who graduated from King David High School in Vancouver in 2018.
Subsequent protests and rallies, such as the one where a Langara College instructor referred to these attacks as “amazing” and “brilliant,” have made Jewish college and university students feel unsafe on their own campuses.
There are feelings of anxiety and exhaustion with these rising incidents of antisemitism, which are often spurred by misinformation or disinformation – including the deliberate distortion of the well-documented facts of the Holocaust.
More than 30 years ago, a group of local Holocaust survivors formed the Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre (VHEC) to share the experiences and lessons of survivors and give more than 25,000 students annually the tools they need to combat antisemitism and hate.
On October 30, Premier David Eby announced that BC would be introducing mandatory Holocaust education into the province’s K-12 curriculum. It is anticipated to be implemented in the 2025-26 school year and make BC the second province in Canada, after Ontario, to take this important step.
🙏Thank the B.C. Government for making Holocaust education mandatory
As we face distortion of #Holocaust history and disinformation about antisemitism today, this decision shows the B.C. Government’s commitment to never again. https://t.co/LLAtR3iT7S pic.twitter.com/SOV3HfhvyH
— CIJA (@CIJAinfo) November 3, 2023
Our community applauded this announcement, but we know that this needs to be done right. The VHEC will work with Premier Eby to, as he said during his announcement, “ensure the content and approach reflects the lived experience of… Holocaust survivors.”
It has been 85 years since Kristallnacht and 78 years since the end of the Second World War. Every year, there are fewer survivors to share their first-hand experiences, many of whom – with their families – dedicated their later lives to preventing humanity from reliving these horrors. It is incumbent on all of us to carry on their memories and share their lessons with future generations.
We are grateful that all four provincial political parties have expressed solidarity with our community. Premier Eby’s recent announcement builds on this support and on the government’s commitment to combating antisemitism and other forms of hate.
As a community, we are eager to work with the BC government to ensure that the experiences and lessons of the province’s Holocaust survivors are enshrined in our provincial education system.
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