We were dismayed to learn that a group of senior high school students in Oswego County in upstate New York seeking special college credit were assigned to argue for or against the “Final Solution,” i.e. the extermination of the Jews as the answer to the Nazi-posed so-called Jewish Question.
Students were directed to draft “an internal memo within [sic] the Nazi party either for or against the Final Solution, using the arguments of the top level officials of the Nazi party….[Y]ou will analyze the issue, provide ‘your’ Nazi point of view for or against the Final Solution and why and thoroughly explain your support or opposition to the Solution.”
What leaps out is that students are presented with a neutral framework in which no distinction is drawn between approving and disapproving of the Final Solution. Is it really appropriate to send this kind message to high school students? Nor is this anything akin to assigning an analytical review of something like the transcripts of the Nuremberg trials in which the testimony of Nazi war criminals is set forth.
Rather, in addition to simply identifying the “pro” arguments as presented by the Nazis, the “pro” students are also to explain why they find those arguments supportive of the correctness of the policy of exterminating Jews. Imagine – the students were told they should search for the material that would justify the mass murder of Jews. Incredible.
Just as disturbing are the outrageous statements from the assigning teacher, Michael DeNobile; the superintendent of the Oswego schools, Christopher Todd; and the New York State education commissioner, MaryEllen Elia.
Mr. DeNobile said students should be coaxed into “going outside [their] comfort zone and train…[their] brain to logistically [sic] find the evidence to prove a point.” Mr. Todd said, “We embrace creativity.” And Ms. Elia said, “I think it’s certainly a question where you want students to think on both sides.”
The usual pap, to be sure, but totally misplaced. Not only are the comments irrelevant to what really went down here, they are plainly inappropriate with regard to history’s singular event of man’s inhumanity to man.
As the Anti-Defamation League put it in response to this travesty, “No assignment should ever be given that even hints at there being two sides to the Holocaust.”