The Emergence of Holocaust Education in American Schools (review)

I first encountered the work of Thomas Fallace, a historian of American education, through his 2006 Holocaust and Genocide Studies article "The Origins of Holocaust Education in American Public Schools."¹ In that piece, Fallace notes the rise of an increasingly detailed explanation of the development of Holocaust consciousness in American culture—an explanation in which "scholars depict Holocaust education in the public schools as a natural outgrowth of the overall rise in Holocaust consciousness." However, he argues, this narrative fails to account sufficiently for the grassroots movement that led to a significant expansion of Holocaust education at the secondary level. A full account, he goes on to say, requires recognition "that the first public-school teachers of the Holocaust [in 1973–75] were responding to a perceived educational need and applying new theories of cognitive development."² I found his argument cogent and well supported. It remains central to this book, informing especially Chapter Three. Naturally, the book is more robust in tracing the rise of Holocaust consciousness and analyzing how progressive initiatives in social studies education and the "affective revolution" provided a rich context for these developments. In addition, Fallace considers how Holocaust curricula have changed over time, evaluates the strengths and weakness of the various curricular options, and assesses whether they have been effectively implemented in American classrooms. In the process, he explores several areas of tension within Holocaust studies—most particularly the conflict between those who assert the uniqueness of the Holocaust and those who focus on its universal qualities within the framework of comparative genocide.

Fallace examines his dominant themes in eight chapters placed in a broad chronological framework. In treating his first theme—the rise of Holocaust consciousness—Fallace tells a story familiar to readers of this journal: the publication of Raul Hilberg's magnum opus and the Eichmann trial in the early 1960s, the emergence of Elie Wiesel as the voice of the Holocaust in the 1970s, the broadcast of the NBC mini-series Holocaust in 1978, the release of Spielberg's Schindler's List in 1983, and the opening of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM) in 1993. Fallace does emphasize the contribution that Holocaust education made to Holocaust awareness, but his development of this theme is unexceptional.

The book clearly holds greater value for those interested in understanding the dynamics of curricular reform and the emergence of Holocaust education in the American public secondary school. The spur for this development came initially from changes in Jewish education. In the 1960s, educational reformers called for more attention to the Holocaust, igniting a rich debate about the role and nature of Holocaust education. At the same time, a larger transformation was under way in public education: an affective revolution characterized by the assertion that "social studies should center on problem areas of relevant public issues and the resolution of values conflicts" (p. 45). Influenced by these changes, in the mid- to late-1970s local educators developed pioneering curriculum projects designed to bring Holocaust education into the public schools. Of these initiatives, the one undertaken by Margot Stern Strom and William Parsons, Massachusetts teachers who met at a workshop on the Holocaust in 1974, proved the most influential. Their collaboration resulted in a curriculum entitled "Facing History and Ourselves," which was published in 1982 and lauded by the U.S. Department of Education. The curricular projects of this period placed the Holocaust in the framework of comparative genocide, highlighting its relevance for the study of contemporary social problems and for the students' moral development. Fallace concludes this section of his study by observing that without this period's freedom for curricular experimentation, "the Holocaust education movement might not have taken off" (p. 58).

The pioneering work of the 1970s was largely limited to urban and suburban areas in the Northeast, many of which had significant Jewish populations. Holocaust education in public schools became more widespread in the following decade, even as the "back to basics" movement...