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French President Nicolas Sarkozy wants all fifth-graders in his country to be “entrusted with the memory” of one of the 11,000 Jewish children who were deported to Auschwitz and other death camps in eastern Europe during the Nazi occupation of France. Speaking to French Jews at a dinner in Perigueux, Sarkozy said, “Nothing is more moving, for a child, than the story of a child his own age, who has the same games, the same joys and the same hopes as he, but who, in the dawn of the 1940s, had the bad fortune to be defined as a Jew.” Since 2002, fifth-graders have studied the Holocaust as a crime against humanity, watching films, visiting museums and memorials and taking field trips to concentration camps, The New York Times reports, and schools that lost students to the Holocaust hang plaques in their memory. Some psychiatrists and teachers object to the curriculum change on the grounds that forcing students to identify with a specific victim would be psychologically traumatic, and would “unfairly burden children with the guilt of previous generations,” reports Reuters. Counters Sarkozy: “You do not traumatize children by giving them the gift of the memory of a country.” Others complain that the proposal doesn’t go far enough, and should also include Gypsies and other victims of the Nazis. The Stiletto agrees, and suggests that the proposal also be extended to include the Armenian Genocide – France has a large population of Armenians in the Diaspora, and their history of near-extermination is currently not taught in French schools. The Armenian Genocide is not taught in Turkish schools – it is a criminal offense to teach, talk about or write about Ottoman Turkey’s systematic annihilation of its Christian Armenian population (second item) - which is why Turks are convinced it never happened (last item, “The Other Shoe Drops”). Israeli children do not learn about the Armenian Genocide in school, according to historian and scholar Yair Auron, author of “The Banality of Denial: Israel and the Armenian Genocide” (Transaction Books, 2003), which is why Israel can enter into a military and economic alliance with Turkey without too many people asking inconvenient and uncomfortable questions about what “never again” should mean to Israelis. And, except for a handful of school districts in MA and CA that have a large Armenian population, the Armenian Genocide is no longer taught in American schools, which is why our elected officials caved in to Turkish threats and tabled a vote on a symbolic resolution to acknowledge the 20th century’s first crime against humanity. "It is ignorance that produces abominable situations. It is not knowledge," insists Sarkozy. www.thestilettoblog.com Victoria Knox (AKA The Stiletto) blogs about politics and ... you name it, since these days everything has become politicized..
A writer is a rogue goose. All other gees fly in a flock formation; every goose knows his place and time for honking. The rogue goose is undisciplined. He leaves the formation indiscriminately to have a look at it from aside. He roams back and forth, takes a peep at the leader, honks a little bit from behind, distracts everyone and writes on what he sees. Time passes and as he wants to return back to his place he discovers someone else there. Thus he either has to wait until they land for rest...
Remarkable malice I am a Jew and I spent my childhood near the Baby Yar, the notorious place of the Jewish Massacre. I am very knowledgeable in Holocaust. I have known many survivors. My own family suffered. I myself was a refugee, not from that malaise but from others. I have watched the documentaries on the WWII since I was 10. AND I UNEQUIVOCALLY STATE THAT ONLY A MALICIOUS IDIOT CAN DO WHAT SARKOZI WANTS TO DO! Pushing down the throat off the children an ABSOLUTELY ADULT TOPIC is a malicious crime. Mr. SARKOZI is a criminal. Holocaust memory does not need that. It needs justice and truth about the events. It needs to see that ADULTS made the proper conclusions in THEIR activity. For goodness sake, people, doing what Sarkozi wants to do is blasphemy. Yes, we have to honor the dead. But hysterical noises only kill them again and again. When adults violate the memory of the dead they hysterically try to push it on children. Leave them alone, for goodness sake. Better show the kids the Horrors of War by Goya. This Sarkosi is a vampire- he just drinks the blood of the dead. by
Mark Sashine (54 articles, 19 quicklinks, 252 diaries, 3605 comments)
on Monday, February 18, 2008 at 1:45:51 PM
"Zapata vive, la lucha sigue"
how to remember We need to remember first of all the victims of our own people's brutality. In this case, French children need to remember Holocaust victims primarily because French people helped with the Holocaust. For the same reason French children need to remember Algerian and Vietnamese children. American children (I once was one) need to remember Native American children, African American children, Japanese children, Vietnamese children, Afghan children, Iraqi children, and a host more. Each child a French child remembers was killed by someone, and the French child will wonder who the killer was. It matters a great deal whether the French child is told "The killers were German Nazis" or "Some of the killers were French". We adults need to remember first of all the victims that our own people killed. It can be done. The German people have been doing it for decades. Australia's new Prime Minister has finally said "We are sorry" to the Aboriginal people and most Australians back his apology. It is a lot easier for us to condemn killers from other lands. Dozens of resolutions like that have been passed. But the resolutions that count most begin at home. If I'm blind to what my people are doing, my condemnation of what yours have done isn't worth much. Stephen by
Zapata (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 3 comments)
on Monday, February 18, 2008 at 2:26:05 PM
Victoria Knox (AKA The Stiletto) blogs about politics and … you name it, since these days everything has become politicized..
What to remember Any country that is allied with Turkey needs to teach its children about the Armenian Genocide - the eyewitnesses are being felled daily by dementia or old age - and thanks to our foreign policy, we are now ALL guilty of this crime against humanity. We had a chance to absolve ourselves of guilt by passing HR/SR 106 but instead chose dip our hands in the blood of Christian martyrs by aiding and abetting Turkey's nearly 100 year campaign of Armenian Genocide denial. Their hands drip with blood, and so do ours. When the last eyewitness survivor has died without having had the satisfaction of having his/her suffering acknowledged, it will be too late. Can't they at least go to their graves having had their suffering validated? by
The Stiletto (37 articles, 0 quicklinks, 3 diaries, 30 comments)
on Wednesday, February 20, 2008 at 3:28:13 PM
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