Steve Breen for April 13, 2018

The survivors are growing thinner on the ground as time moves on. I remember because my father saw at least one camp and I could tell it had had an effect on him. That was about the only thing in his visit to Europe in ‘43-’45 that he talked about besides an itinerary that he gave me for a term paper in junior high.

It’s because there is a deliberate dumbing down of the public schools, and lack of history and science. I was taught, I read, I learned. Kids these days read Harry Potter, if anything, and can tweet or text, but don’t know who the Cossacks, the Scythians or the Minoans were.

Ask the average High School Student to name the 3 branches of the Government…most can’t!

History moves on as new horrors are accomplished.

Seriously? Uganda, Cambodia, the list goes on and on of things that should have never happened since “Never Forget”.

Your artwork brings to mind the saying: “Those who forget history are condemned to repeat it”.But who forgot, Steve ? definitely not the Neo Nazis, didn’t you see them march in Charlottesville and elsewhere ? They are still celebrating the glorious holocaust.

That one.. is but one of many since the dawn of time. It is only remembered because a whole nation is determined to keep the memory alive.. All the while… it itself continues doing the same thing to the State of Palestine.. And so it goes.

let’s not forget the Pink Triangles…

It is the way of mankind – There aren’t many people around who remember Pearl Harbor, and someday there will be no one who lived through 9/11 and that too will fade. But we keep history – which is why education is so important. And we keep our civilization going – which is why it is so important to participate in our democracy. And we try and stick to the truth – which is why we need factual media and honest leaders. We are seeing what happens when we don’t.

Maybe this is why there have been so many movies and documentaries about WWII, i.e. Dunkirk, The Darkest Hour, so we won’t forget. Check out Netflix that has about a dozen shows about the Nazis: The War, Auschwitz, Hitler’s Bodyguard, The World War, etc. I think it is very important we look back at what brought Hitler to power and be aware of how Trump is mimicking him in so many ways.

Our public school system doesn’t teach the history of labor, let alone WWII. Its all testing prep 101. Who is going to remember the events that lead to the Holocaust if they aren’t taught anymore?

We are not just casually forgetting about the Holocaust, we are actively suppressing it’s existence.

Just as we are endeavoring, by the actions of our BLOTUS SCROTUS and his daily assaults on the free press, to return to the glory days of the Committee on Public information and the Sedition Act.

“Truth and falsehood are arbitrary terms . . . the force of an idea lies in it’s inspirational value. It matters very little if it is true or false.” Arthur Bullard

Now we all know how black Americans feel about centuries of slavery.

Americans aren’t forgetting. People who understood what happened are dying from old age. And the people left never learned (regardless of age).

They are forgetting because the schools have essentially eliminated the bulk of course materials. These days it is a toss off topic.

When I was in high school we spent a week on the Holocaust.

While our education system is partly to blame, this is the information age and folks are starting to wake up and realize that there’s a lot of misleading & conflicting information about the Holocaust — to the point that some of it could be considered propaganda. Folks are being jailed (read: 87 year old German grandmother) in some places for merely disputing the some of the Holocaust narrative. Anytime governments jail folks for disputing history or facts, a huge red flag goes up. Just like how the Obama administration wanted to pass laws to jail anyone who denied global warming, even though nobel prize winners were disputing the findings — and it has later been discovered that NOAA altered their data.

When you consider how many folks the Bolsheviks are responsible for killing, even if everything the Holocaust folks say were true, it’s a fraction. In one situation one group is the victims, in another they’re responsible for the deaths of others.

While I can’t speak for any previous commentators’ experience, I do wonder how many have asked a high school student if they have/have not learned of the Holocaust. At my school, students learn of it in freshmen year and in junior year in their History classes. Also, in English classes Holocaust related literature is incorporated. My own children went to three different high schools, they also learned of the Holocaust. Teaching something is not a guarantee that it will be remembered. The “receding memories” have many causes, some of which have been mentioned. I think that this happens with all historic events. I’ve always taught my students it’s part of a historical cycle when the generation who experienced it passes on. The memory can continue to exist, but in a different way. We experience history through a lens shaped by the present.Although I’d never say never, I can’t imagine with the enormity of the event, the amount of info that is available related to the Holocaust, and the teachers who do teach it, that “Holocaust memory” will be erased any time soon.

I remember seeing newsreels of the liberated camps with stacks of bodies. I was just a kid, but my parents wanted me to see how awful this was in order to never forget how humanity can do terrible things if we follow the wrong leaders.

I met two or three people who had German prison camp numbers tattooed on their arms.