New law requires schools to teach about the Holocaust

(JUNE 1, 2019) Oregon has a new law that says schools must teach students about the Holocaust. The law says that schools must "prepare students to confront the immorality of the Holocaust, genocide, and other acts of mass violence and to reflect on the causes of related historical events.”

The Holocaust was a genocide during World War II. A genocide is the intentional killing of people of a particular race or from a particular country. During World War II, the Nazi government of Germany killed 6 million Jews as well as 5 million others that they claimed were inferior. These people often were sent to concentration camps and then killed in large gas chambers.

Alter Wiener was a Holocaust survivor who helped to create the new Oregon law. He was born in Poland. He came to the United States after the war. In 2000, he moved to Oregon. He wrote a book called From a Name to a Number: A Holocaust Survivor's Autobiography.

Wiener told Oregon lawmakers: “Learning about the Holocaust is not just a chapter in recent history, but a derived lesson how to be more tolerant, more loving and that hatred is, eventually, self-destructive. Remember, be better, rather than bitter.”

Ten other states require similar education about genocide in schools.