Rialto,
California – A Southern California school district has received
intense criticism for asking middle school students to debate whether the
Holocaust happened.
The lesson plan, designed for eighth-graders, was supposed to
help students analyze propaganda.
“When tragic events
occur in history, there is often debate about their actual existence,” the
assignment read. “For example, some people claim the Holocaust is not an
actual historical event but instead is a propaganda tool that was used for
political and monetary gain.”
The assignment then
asked students to explain whether they “believe the Holocaust was an
actual event in history, or merely a political scheme created to influence
public emotion and gain.”
Before writing the essay,
students were instructed to read three articles: One of those texts read,
“Even the Diary of Anne Frank is a hoax,” NBC Southern California reported.
About 6 million Jews
were killed in the Holocaust between 1933 and 1945. In total, 10 million people
were systematically killed. In some European countries, including Germany,
denying the Holocaust is a crime.
A group of teachers
wrote the assignment for the district’s 2,000 eighth-graders back in December.
The department that crafted the writing prompt will undergo sensitivity
training, CBS Los Angeles reported.
Both the school
district’s interim superintendent, Mohammed Z. Islam, and its spokeswoman,
Syeda Jafri, have received death threats for the assignment, police said.
