common core continues Holocaust Hoax Assignment

i could see this being a valuable exercise for upper-level classes for advanced/gifted students. 8th grade? too early

Take them to history class. Students should reply with verifiable facts that show the ridiculousness of the question/assignment.

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"But the most interesting -- although horrible -- sight that I encountered during the trip was a visit to a German internment camp near Gotha. The things I saw beggar description. While I was touring the camp I encountered three men who had been inmates and by one ruse or another had made their escape. I interviewed them through an interpreter. The visual evidence and the verbal testimony of starvation, cruelty and bestiality were so overpowering as to leave me a bit sick. In one room, where they [there] were piled up twenty or thirty naked men, killed by starvation, George Patton would not even enter. He said he would get sick if he did so. I made the visit deliberately, in order to be in position to give first-hand evidence of these things if ever, in the future, there develops a tendency to charge these allegations merely to 'propaganda'."


Letter, DDE to George C. Marshall, 4/15/45 [The Papers of Dwight David Eisenhower, The War Years IV, doc #2418]

"We continue to uncover German concentration camps for political prisoners in which conditions of indescribable horror prevail. I have visited one of these myself and I assure you that whatever has been printed on them to date has been understatement. If you would see any advantage in asking about a dozen leaders of Congress and a dozen prominent editors to make a short visit to this theater in a couple of C-54's, I will arrange to have them conducted to one of these places where the evidence of bestiality and cruelty is so overpowering as to leave no doubt in their minds about the normal practices of the Germans in these camps."


Cable, DDE to George C. Marshall, 4/19/45 [The Papers of Dwight David Eisenhower, The War Years IV, doc #2424]

"When I found the first camp like that I think I never was so angry in my life. The bestiality displayed there was not merely piled up bodies of people that had starved to death, but to follow out the road and see where they tried to evacuate them so they could still work, you could see where they sprawled on the road. You could go to their burial pits and see horrors that really I wouldn't even want to begin to describe. I think people ought to know about such things. It explains something of my attitude toward the German war criminal. I believe he must be punished, and I will hold out for that forever."


Press conference, 6/18/45 [DDE's Pre-Presidential Papers, Principal File, Box 156, Press Statements and Releases, 1944-46 (1" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noreferrer">

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Dwight D. Eisenhower: Holocaust/Concentration Camps

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Take them to history class. Students should reply with verifiable facts that show the ridiculousness of the question/assignment.

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By citing the information in your post - I think you are actually completing the assignment and doing what the teacher had hoped you would do, not showing it is ridiculous. Good critical thinking!

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I use the analogy of an experiment in physics class to determine g=9.81 m/s^2. The teacher knows the answer. The student usually knows the answer (if they've been reading the book). There is one correct answer (within error bars). If you don't get that answer you did something wrong in the experiment. But you are still expected to proceed with the experiment as if you are unaware of the answer.

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I am going to differentiate that analogy . There is no material out there that an 8th grader could find, that strongly argues g= anything other than 9.81^m/s^2

This is sick. Thousands of Americans still bare the tattoos on their arms. Thousands of veterans still remember liberating the camps, many were never the same again after witnessing that atrocity. Who ever added this to the curriculum is a sick, demented, psychopath.

Critical thinking is a valid exercise at higher levels. Our kids are not well-educated enough to start roleplaying as history doubters at 13-14. Middle and High School should be rigorous learning, not exploration.

Some exceptions for AP and gifted, otherwise save it for college. We need to focus more on packing knowledge into heads, not honing in on gray areas and developing cognitive skills for kids who don't have any knowledge basis to be used for critical thinking exercises.

I have no issue with critical thinking, but this is sick. Why not have them perform critical thinking on something that's actually a controversy like who killed Kennedy, was the South's secession from the North Constitutional, Were their weapons of mass destruction in Iraq prior to the invasion, what if we had stayed out of Europe and let the Germans win World War I, what if, what if, what if, to ad nauseum. This is a sick and demented way to try to create more fertile ground to plant antisemitism into the minds of teenagers.

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Why not have them perform critical thinking on something that's actually a controversy like who killed Kennedy

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By the same logic, we should abandon basic physics experiments for students - like ball bearings rolling down inclines - since the answers are already well known - and instead have the students look for dark matter.

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was the South's secession from the North Constitutional

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I though you wanted to abandon non-controversies. Of course it wasn't Constitutional. The Constitution established a "more perfect union" than the "perpetual" union of the Articles.

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n, what if we had stayed out of Europe and let the Germans win World War I,

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Now you want them to investigate things that DIDN'T HAPPEN? WTF?

I hope you aren't a school teacher.

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This is a sick and demented way to try to create more fertile ground to plant antisemitism into the minds of teenagers.

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If that's the real intent then it is sick. Judging by the absurdity of the evidence offered in the denialist section of the assignment, I'd find that hard to believe though. Its clearly set up so the student should pick the non-denialist side.

If the holocaust never occurred does that make George Soros less of a POS?

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Let them learn what the Nazis did and how advanced Europe really was.

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But God forbid they are asked to go and do the research to prove the holocaust happened to themselves. They should just believe what we tell them. (unless its global warming, of course).


EDIT - I should say INTENT does matter here. If it is true the intent of the assignment is to make holocaust deniers of the students, then obviously its racist. Its also quite futile, as anyone who is asked to dig up evidence on the question of whether or not the holocaust happened will soon find out how overwhelming the evidence is.