Tuesday, November 20, 2007

Dropping the Holocaust from textbooks: A Crazy Rumor Persists with a change of continent

[Blogging on the M60 bus in NYC]
edited November 21

A couple of months ago there was a rumor floating around about the UK [as in United Kingdom... you will see shortly why I mention the obvious] dropping the teaching of the Holocaust from its curriculum

It was completely false and was scotched by many people, including then Chancellor Gordon Brown.

Well, proving that nothing absurd ever disappears [hence the persistence of antisemitism], the rumor is back, except now it is about the University of Kentucky [UK, get it??].

And it comes with a completely absurd call for action. The newly added paragraph reads:
It is now more than 60 years after the Second World War in Europe ended. This e-mail is being sent as a memorial chain, in memory of the six million Jews, 20 million Russians, 10 million Christians and 1,900 Catholic priests who were murdered, massacred, raped, burned, starved and humiliated while the German and Russian peoples looking the other way!

Now, more than ever, with Iran, among others, claiming the Holocaust to be 'a myth,' it is imperative to make sure the world never forgets. This e-mail is intended to reach 40 million people worldwide!

Be a link in the memorial chain and help distribute this around the world. How many years will it be before the attack on the World Trade Center 'never happened' because it offends some Muslim in the U.S.??????
These numbers make no sense and historically inaccurate. ["German and Russian peoples"? What's this about Russians looking the other way? Last time I checked Russian/Soviet citizens were among the largest number of victims of World War II, not the Holocaust.]

Then to make matters worse some person has added the following addendum:
Let's not forget the Demoncrat's in the House Defunding of the South Vietnamese in the 1970's leading to the slaughter of unknown millions (estimates 1.8 to 3.2 million) Vietnamese and Cambodians by Pol Pot's Camere [sic.] Rouge and Ho Chi Min's invasion of the South in a short 18 months to two years. That is more than the USA killed in over ten years while in country.
Even if Univ of Kentucky had dropped teaching of the Holocaust - WHICH IT HAS NOT -- what does the Democrats' action in 1970s have to do with it.

Some people have way too much time on their hands.

5 comments:

FAIIRPLAY said...

This rumour? was well publicised in the British press, and the 'write ups''included 'interviews' with British teachers who alleged that Muslim students became highly disruptive during lessons if the Holocaust was mentioned, so much so that the Holocaust was being dropped. If this was an hoax I don't know, if it was then I certainly fell for it. A school teacher friend confirmed in her class/es Muslims became [in her words] a bxxxxxxxxy nuisance at times and this was the sort of thing they did. It is a fact that on British campuses the known Jews are subjected to Muslim intolerance and they avoid Muslims by taking precautions such as 'not getting into a lift [elevator] with them'.

Unlike the USA, we have had 5 bouts of Muslim riots and Muslims declaring UK residential areas in British city's 'no go areas for whites and christians'. 9-11 sparked off a simmering and festering boil up of hate here between the 2 sides.

Benji Lovitt said...

Thank you for bringing this to light; I hate getting these things forwarded to me. Rule #1: check snopes.com!

Deborah Lipstadt said...

Fairplay: Take a look at my earlier posts on this. The teaching of the Holocaust has not been dropped wholesale from British schools.

Are there schools where teachers don't teach about it because of Muslim students, I don't doubt it.
That's disturbing and a real problem.

But is that the equivalent of the school system dropping the teaching... not by a long shot.

FAIIRPLAY said...

DeB: The British School system is not what it was, in my day it was kind hearted tweedy types, wearing cardigans and sensible shoes, whose love for their pupils was legendy. These tweedy types have been swamped by a new militant crowd, who seem to be more concerned with human rights, Iraq, Iran, abortions, spreading the Socialist message and joining strike picket-lines. As Bob Hope might have said if Stalin hasn't put them on the payroll then Communismn is not all its professed to be. To compound the problem our TV news shows daily what we call 'inner city schools', with 30 different nationalities attending. The teachers don't know what to do with them so they are given crayons and told to draw all day. I predict the days of the great British writers are over, and we will soon lead the world in ART. You then have little snippets like MI6 Intelligence Services have identified 2500 known active Muslim terrorists, whose excursions to Al Quaeda training camps is to improve [presumably] their electrical skills? It's all so depressing. Who could have ever predicted that immigrants could be so ungrateful. Last week we had a racist incident near here, in which a group of Poles, we have 600 000+ Polish newbies, were told by a group of Jamaicans "to get back to their own country?" [off topic / *** Watched the film Cross of Fear yesterday - this is the best anti-racist film I've seen for ages.

Ian Thal said...

Deborah-

It was my understanding as well, that once the British press reported that certain teachers were electing to drop the Holocaust from their syllabus, the public outrage was such that greater funding was appropriated specifically for Holocaust education. Am I correct on this?