Political Analysis and Global Affairs

  Holocaust ignorance isn’t about books. It’s about what societies choose to forget. I recently read a piece arguing that Americans need better Holocaust education. The author cited polls showing that many young people don’t know when the Holocaust happened, how Hitler came to power, or even what Auschwitz was. The reaction was predictable. Some readers were alarmed. Others pushed back. Not everyone reads history books, they said. Not everyone studies international relations. Both sides are talking past the real issue. This isn’t about turning every citizen into a historian. It’s about what happens to a society when its most catastrophic crimes slip out of shared memory. I didn’t inherit this history. I learned it. I didn’t grow up surrounded by survivors or family stories. I learned about the Holocaust the slow, unglamorous way. Books. Newspapers. Documentaries. Courses on international relations where history refused to stay abstract. Once you’ve learned it properly, de...