HHRC Backs Holocaust Education in Maine

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

May 20, 2021

CONTACT:

Tam Huyn
tam@hhrcmaine.org

HHRC Backs Holocaust Education in Maine Schools

AUGUSTA – The Holocaust and Human Rights Center of Maine (HHRC) today announced that it is supporting two bills in the Maine legislature that will require Holocaust education in Maine schools. The filing of the bills followed the release of surveys in 2020 that found a widespread lack of knowledge of the Holocaust among Maine students. 

“There is a saying that ‘History doesn’t repeat itself, but it does rhyme,’” HHRC Executive Director Tam Huynh said. “We urge the Maine legislature to pass these two important measures to address the concerning lack of knowledge of the Holocaust and the alarming rise in anti-Semitism and Holocaust denial in Maine and across the country.”

L.D. 187, An Act To Require Education about African-American History and the History of Genocide, is sponsored by State Senator Louis Luchini (D-Hancock) and cosponsored by Assistant House Majority Leader Rachel Talbot Ross (D-Portland), recipient of the HHRC’s 2020 Gerda Haas Award for Excellence in Holocaust and Human Rights Education and Leadership. L.D. 215, An Act To Require Instruction on the History of Genocide and the Holocaust, is sponsored by Maine State House Speaker Ryan Fecteau (D-Biddeford). 

Erica Nadelhaft, education coordinator at the HHRC and a Holocaust and antisemitism scholar, stated, “The only way we can get to ‘never again’ is to educate this generation and each generation that follows that the Holocaust was very, very real for the six million Jews who perished and the many millions of LGBTQ, Roma, and other minorities who were persecuted.”

Public hearings for both bills were held on May 10th before the Committee on Education and Cultural Affairs. Both bills have yet to be reported out of committee. 

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