Public, private and parochial schools must teach the “historical facts of Hitlerism, including racism and genocide, and the law should require teacher-training in intergroup relations,” the Jewish Exponent declared in its current issue, after completing an examination of high school and college textbooks here.
The study and recommendations stressed that “omission of racial and genocidal information of the Hitler period in typical history textbooks ranges from aching silence to stammered partial truth.”
Mrs. Emily Sunstein, who made the study, quoted textbook publishers as contending that, because of the economic factors involved, they must keep “controversial matter” out of textbooks. On the basis of these interviews, the writer said: “We must assume that Hitler’s racial and genocidal policies are a subject which Americans do not want to digest. They may be historical facts–but they are controversial.”
The Exponent writer proposed that psychologists, human relations experts and educators create special programs to teaching the historical facts about racism and genocide to students.
“In spite of fears of publishers,” she asserted, “like-minded school boards and organizations could join together to demand that realism and historical fact be written into textbooks. Publishers would undoubtedly comply. Until they do, special paperback or mimeographed material should be created to supplement texts.”
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
