This Columbia group is working to replace ‘our truth’ with historical fact
“If you tell a big enough lie and tell it frequently enough, it will be believed.”
Most of us know this quote, but few know it’s from Adolf Hitler, the maniacal leader in Germany from 1932 through 1945.
And big lies were told to the German masses: The Jews have an international conspiracy to take over the world, the Jews are to blame forall of the woes of Germany, the Jews killed Jesus … and on and on. He told these lies over and over, and the German people followed him, and consequently six million Jews were murdered along with five million others during the worst time in human history, the Holocaust.
“How fortunate for leaders that man does not think.”
This is another Hitler quote, which can explain how and why old stigmas, wives tales and lies seem to prevail in the minds of many.
Just this February, the Polish government passed legislation that would impose prison sentences of up to three years for mentioning the term “Polish death camps” and for suggesting “publicly and against the facts” that the Polish nation was complicit in Nazi Germany’s crimes. Polish President Andrzej Dudu proclaimed: “We have a right to our historical truth”. Since when do we have our facts, or for that matter “alternative” facts? We just have facts.
The objections from the United States, Israel and Auschwitz survivors explain how this will threaten and stifle honest discussion of the Nazi genocide. As a TV commercial explains: “You can call a banana an apple, but it is still a banana.”
When the 2020 social studies standards were initially proposed by the S.C. Department of Education and the term “Holocaust” and Holocaust events were omitted, I was outraged and terrified that we in South Carolina had succumbed to this way of thinking — or not thinking. Although,this has been corrected, we should all be frightened by the ease with which we can eliminate a portion of history by omission or “mistake.”
Being vigilant about safeguarding the truth is paramount. We are not entitled to “our historical truth,” but to the pure, accurate and documented truth.
This is madness. It appears that the history and significance behind these symbols are not studied or understood by those who use them: the students, the parents, the teachers.
We have evidence in our communities that the vile rhetoric and actions of the Nazis are alive and well. Recently road signs in Lexington were effaced with swastikas, children in middle schools were being called derogatory names, swastikas and “Heil Hitler” slogans were drawn in their yearbooks, and children dressed as Hitler saluting were featured in a school Facebook post.
This is madness. It appears that the history and significance behind these symbols are not studied or understood by those who use them: the students, the parents, the teachers.
The Columbia Holocaust Education Commission is a voluntary group of people dedicated to teaching the lessons of the Holocaust. Continuing to hate will only breed more hatred and bigotry. We have expanded our educational reach throughout the state, with the 24-panel “Holocaust Remembered” exhibit and educational events with the exhibit.
The exhibit visited four churches earlier this year, it’s in two universities through the middle of this month, and it will be in two high schools and at a retirement community in the Lowcountry later in the month. The response has been overwhelming.
We are hopeful that this will open and begin dialog in classrooms, churches and organizations between Christians, Jews and Muslims interested in learning about the lessons of the Holocaust.
In February, we showed a documentary film “The Boys of Birkenau” in three high schools and three middle schools and brought the director of the film here from New York to engage in a “talk back” with the teachers and students. We are hopeful that this will open and begin dialog in classrooms, churches and organizations between Christians, Jews and Muslims interested in learning about the lessons of the Holocaust.
On Friday, the fifth edition of the 24-page Holocaust Remembered supplement “Antisemitism, Then and Now” will be distributed in all McClatchy papers in South Carolina: Columbia, Rock Hill, Hilton Head, Beaufort and Myrtle Beach. You can find the four previous editions at thestate.com/holocaust.
If you are interested in bringing the exhibit to your church, organization or school or for further information about the Columbia Holocaust Education Commission, please visit our web site at columbiaholocausteducation.org.
Let us refute the “big lie” and “our historical truth” and return to primary sources, historical facts and archives for the information that we teach our children.
Dr. Filler is co-chair of the Columbia Holocaust Education Commission; contact her at LFiller@scholocaustcouncil.org.
This story was originally published April 4, 2018 at 12:10 PM with the headline "This Columbia group is working to replace ‘our truth’ with historical fact."