No two sides to the Holocaust, Texas public school educators agree

Published by carolyn on Sun, 2021-10-17 11:22

The majority of published books on Holocaust are for children in the K-12 school age group, and they are fictional or partly-fictional accounts – even famous ones like Anne Frank's Diary.


By Carolyn Yeager

THE HOLOCAUST OCCURRED JUST AS THE POPULAR NARRATIVE, as told in tens of thousands of books for children that have been published in the U.S. alone, says it did. So Texas professional educators and politicians quickly agreed in the wake of an uproar following a Dallas-Fort Worth area administrator's use of the Holocaust to explain how to allow all sides of a Civics issue to be heard, or available, in classrooms.

These non-experts in history assure teachers and public that the Holocaust is 'established fact' and 'settled history,' yet so sensitive that no other side can be presented—ever. Well, you know, they have voters to contend with. And they always need money too.

At the heart of the commotion is a new Texas education law [House Bill 3979*] that requires Social Studies and Civics teachers to present multiple perspectives when discussing “widely debated and currently controversial” issues. 

Gina Peddy, executive director of curriculum and instruction at Carroll ISD in Southlake, Texas (a suburb of Dallas-Fort Worth), in a training session with teachers aimed to help them understand and meet the new law's requirements, used the example of 'the holocaust' instead of the law's target: the “currently controversial” race and gender issues that are lately bringing parents to protest at school board meetings.

Peddy was secretly recorded by one teacher as saying: “Just try to remember the concepts of [House Bill] 3979 and make sure that if you have a book on the Holocaust, that you have one that has an opposing, that has other perspectives.”

This caused perplexed reaction from the teachers. “How do you oppose the Holocaust?” one teacher asked. Peddy answered, “Believe me, that's come up.”

More teachers in the training session spoke up. One asked if she would have to remove from her classroom library a popular NOVEL for kids, “Number the Stars” by Lois Lowry that tells a fictional story of 'the Holocaust' from the perspective of victims only. In the confusion, no answer was heard from Peddy.

[Most K-12 students are offered fictional books 'to check out' that arouse an emotional reaction in favor of one side and against the other, yet are never examined for accuracy of the historical background. Fiction has traditionally been for enjoyment, but Holocaust fiction has a larger purpose as propaganda. Our schools are thus aiding and abetting this propaganda to unsuspecting children, who are encouraged to accept fiction as fact.]

Peddy is now staying quiet. Another Carroll spokeswoman Karen Fitgerald said the district is trying to help teachers comply with the new state law and an updated version that will go into effect in December: Texas Senate Bill 3. She wrote that “our district will not mandate that books be removed or that classroom libraries be unavailable. Teachers who are unsure about a book should visit with their campus principal or curriculum coordinators about appropriate next steps.” Well, we know how that would pan out— the unquestioned factuality of the Holocaust would be affirmed.

A Texas State Teachers Association union spokesman announced, “We find it reprehensible for an educator to require a Holocaust denier to get equal treatment with the facts of history. That's absurd. It's worse than absurd. And this law does not require it.” State Sen. Bryan Hughes agreed, calling the Holocaust “a matter of good and evil” for which only one perspective was okay. (Except that we know religious beliefs are no longer a “matter of good and evil” but are a matter of belief in today's world. Not so the Holocaust, however—the new religion of the secular Western world.)

Carroll ISD Superintendent Lane Ledbetter posted a statement on Facebook saying that Peddy's advice to teachers was “in no way to convey that the Holocaust was anything less than a terrible event in history” and “we recognize there are not two sides of the Holocaust.”

This is the message from the media, so any other message only confuses people. The media, including Hollywood films and the popular fiction industry, tells us our history, not academic rigor or fair and free debate.

As far as every school district in America goes, and certainly among our politicians, one-way thinking is the norm. They sure can't conceive of anyone deviating from absolute belief in the Holocaust, which they themselves have never questioned.

To highlight how completely duped and indoctrinated the average public school teacher is, the recording device also picked up some comments from teachers gathered in a hallway discussing the situation. “I am offended as hell by somebody who says I should have an opposing view to the Holocaust in my library,” a teacher said with quavering voice. Another replied, “They don't understand what they have done. They are going to lose incredible teachers, myself potentially being with them.”

So if anyone is worried about this school adminstrator's use of the Holocaust as an example of offering two sides or more on a controversial issue, your worries are in vain. It's a tempest in a teapot because you won't find anyone, anywhere in a position of authority to disagree that Holocaust can only be seen one way … despite what the Texas bill might say should be done in the name of education. [This article's source of information on the dispute is https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/southlake-texas-holocaust-books-schools-rcna2965 ]

*The bill requires, among other things, that a teacher who chooses to discuss a topic described by Subdivision (1) shall, to the best of the teacher's ability, strive to explore that topic from diverse and contending perspectives without giving deference to any one perspective.

And: to develop the [student's] ability to analyze and determine the reliability of information sources; formulate and articulate reasoned positions; actively listen and engage in discoursewith those with different viewpoints.

Comments

It is, indeed, a cowardly old world we live in (apologies to Shakespeare and Orwell).

The Diary of Anne Frank is in the nonfiction section. Everyone knows she was murdered by the Germans.

Are you being facetious? Anyway, welcome to my site.

http://www.jrbooksonline.com/PDF_Books/AnneFrankFraud.pdf
I have not read this in Full but maybe it applies

Almost exactly two years ago a principal in Florida named William Laton got fired because he told a parent, "not everyone believes the holocost happened." Laton is Black and it is taken as a given that minorties do not perceive Jews as powerless victims---but rather as ruthless oppressors of 'people of colour'. Another story at that time described a group of young Black men who had been sent to the US holocost museum and found the piles of old shoes so ludicrous that they couldn't stop laughing.
Like Jesse Jackson who famously quipped, "I'm sick and tired of hearing about the holocost!" most Blacks feel they have their own holocost to promote and profit from. 
 

Carolyn, you are the most important writer in the 20th and 21st centuries.  Unless this holocaust lie is revealed we, as a world, will be condemned to live in chaos and war.   It is called Karma.   The war goes on in the propaganda of the left: communists, Marxist, Fascists, and democrats. (C.S. Lewis, The Abolition of Man)    It is true that those who live by the sword will die by the sword.  You are a great woman.   I appreciate your work.  Thank you.

I see that you and Fox have returned to your missionary work in the slums of Unz.Com, LOL. I want to tell the posters there not to challenge Yeager on the Holocaust, as Yeager is much in the same position as Obi-Wan Kenobi at the end of his light-saber duel with Anakin Skywalker in Revenge of the Sith (2005) when he tells the young Anakin, 'It's over, Anakin - I have the higher ground - don't try it'. Here's the clip.
 
Did Philip Giraldi really paraphrase your entire article at Unz? I can't be bothered reading Giraldi. I can't stand the hypocrisy of these 'Anti-Zionists' - wringing their hands for the victims of aerial bombardment in Gaza, Palestine and showing cold indifference to the victims of aerial bombardment in Idlib, Syria. (And let's not forget the wretches in Yemen...) Once you get sucked into Arab and Middle Eastern politics, you end up doing an injustice by favouring one set of Arabs over another - and staining yourself morally thereby; and that's because all Semites (and that includes Jews and Arabs) always commit atrocities against one another with gleeful abandon, without pity, without remorse.
 
I don't want to go off on a tangent, but 'Anti-Zionists' at Unz.Com oppose Israel for Arabist and Marxist reasons, not National Socialist reasons. And that's the drawback of Unz.Com.
 
I'm fascinated by your characterisation of Franklin Ryckaert as a disinformation agent... Old Franklin keeps on plugging away, day after day, despite all the scorn heaped upon his him - which raises the question, is he getting paid?
 
The other night I came across this interesting US army monograph, 'Communist Interrogation, Indoctrination and Exploitation of Prisoners of War' (1956). It describes how the Russians tried to turn German POWs against Hitler and Germany, and for some odd reason, I'm reminded of Ryckaert and a few other disinformation agents at Unz.
 Here are a few quotes, from pages 12 to 13:
 

The Soviets emphasized the theme that Hitler and the Nazis had betrayed the POWs and the German people. The purpose of this theme was to alienate the prisoners from their basic loyalties, to create doubt and confusion in their minds, and to destroy any group unity that might exist...
 
The basic technique of Communist indoctrination against the German prisoners was to discredit not only Hitler but the whole German concept of government. The Communists attacked all German leaders and all German schools of thought, except communism...
 
The Communists collected a large number of diaries and letters of dead German officers which indicated defeatist attitudes after Hitler's forces began to slow down on all fronts. These documents were disseminated to all newly captured prisoners. They were used to discredit and degrade the officer class and served to create doubt and to weaken the enlisted POWs faith in their officers and in Germany...
 

I'd love to know if the Russians used Holocaust propaganda to indoctrinate these Germans, but chances are they didn't. My impression is that the American and Russian governments (and armed forces) in the period from 1940 to about 1970 (?) saw the Holocaust as a story to be told to the rubes; but in their own internal documents, they didn't give it any credence.

No, Giraldi's article was left behind long ago. The comment thread is just going on its own steam with the usual holohoax debate. This one is pretty good though; some better people and not many trolls.

I'm back on Unz because the moderator at Occidental Observer stopped publishing my comments there. I had some very good ones too, especially on 'religion' themes. But I mentioned MacDonald again, which is a no-no from me and that one and 5 or so after that were ignored, so I said Okay, that's it. I'm done here.

The subject of captured German officers under Soviet indoctrination is pretty well known. I don't think they mentioned anything about "holocaust" at all. What you copy here is about right. It's discussed by Hitler in the Hermann Giesler translation Willi K. and I did -- "Artist Within the Warlord." It's a very good book, btw. Cheap at only $21 now. I get very little because I have to give a discount to the book sellers so they'll have an interest in moving it, but that's alright b/c I just want it to be circulated. It's doing okay, I'm satisfied.

I don't think Franklin Ryckaert is a real disinformation agent, but he does deal in disinformation, and knowingly so. He doesn't care. All he knows is what's on Wiki pages. He'll say anything he thinks he can get away with. You notice he never defends himself except to to just state another bit of misinformation.

The information war is more destructive than shooting wars, agreed?