Jewish American Heritage Month

Posted By admin on March 3, 2021

Theres a new effort in the state to require students to learn about the Holocaust.

N.C. Rep. Wayne Sasser (R-Stanly) is a primary sponsor for a bill that if passed would require middle and high school students to receive instruction about the Holocaust and genocide.

The bipartisan bill, introduced a few weeks ago as House Bill 69 by Sasser along with Reps. Julia Howard (R-District 77), Jeffrey Elmore (R-District 94) and Robert Reives (D-District 54), requires that Holocaust education be included in the states Standard Course of Study.

This would mean thatinstruction regarding the Holocaust and genocide would also be included in social studies classes, English classes and other subjects where Holocaust education would likely be discussed. The bill, which also offers a Holocaust Studies elective for students to take, invites the North Carolina Council on the Holocaust to help with implementing the curriculum.

The Holocaust was the systematic murder by the Nazis and their allies of more than 6 million European Jews and others before and during World War II.

Its not about religion or any focus on what one group thinks, its just about history, Sasser said about the bill, noting that genocides which are the deliberate killings of a large number of people from a particular nation or ethnic group are still occurring today across the world.

Wayne Sasser

A former history major, Sasser enjoys reading about the past and about different cultures, especially former president Andrew Jackson and the Lakota people, a Native American tribe out west in North and South Dakota.

The Gizella Abramson Holocaust Education Act is named after a Polish-born Holocaust survivor who relocated to Raleigh. Before she died in 2011, Abramson spoke at schools about the Holocaust.

With more and more Holocaust survivors and World War II veterans dying each year, it can be really easy to forget about that part of history, Sasser said, which makes educating young people about it all the more important.

Its about being a decent human being, Sasser said about the need for more Holocaust and genocide education.

The same legislation was passed by the House in 2019, but was never acted on in the Senate. It was included as part of the state budget approved by lawmakers, but vetoed by Gov. Roy Cooper.

The bill currently sits in the Committee on Education-K-12. Sasser is not aware of a companion bill in the Senate.

Chris Miller has been with the SNAP since January 2019. He is a graduate of NC State and received his Master's in Journalism from the University of Maryland. He previously wrote for the Capital News Service in Annapolis, where many of his stories on immigration and culture were published in national papers via the AP wire.

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Sasser helps introduce bill to teach about Holocaust in schools - The Stanly News & Press | The Stanly News & Press - Stanly News & Press

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