Holocaust to be taken out of textbooks in Cleveland

'We don't care that it happened, since it happened to them'

CLEVELAND (RWN) - Fundamentalist members of the Cleveland Public School Board have voted to no longer teach the Holocaust in high school history classes.

The board voted 7-2 last night to strike the actions of the Germans against Jews, Gypsies and scores of other groups from curriculum.

"Look at how the Zionists betrayed us," said Makar Rind, a member of the board. "We do not need to ennoble them by talking about what they've gone through. They are our enemies."

This is the second time that the Cleveland Public School Board has taken a controversial stance on history. Three years ago, the board ruled that the 9/11 attacks on New York City and Washington, D.C., should be taught as great moments in the nation's history.

Other school boards often take their lead from the Cleveland board, which is one of the most conservative in the country. The 9/11 modification is now being taught in schools throughout the nation.

"What's scariest about this is the ripple effect," said Jay Rabsone, a history professor at Ohio State University and an outspoken critic of the Cleveland board. "They make a decision in Cleveland and fundamentalists and conservatives around the country are encouraged. The decisions they make aren't good ones. The Cleveland board is taking history out of its context. The 9/11 attacks, for example, weren't seen as great revolutionary moments by the American citizenry. They were seen as sneaky, underhanded attacks. Taking the Holocaust out of the curriculum takes away the context, too. It has American soldiers fighting in Germany because the Japanese attacked at Pearl Harbor and Germany was bound by treaty to declare war on the United States."

The meeting was standing room only, with seating broken down over ideological lines, conservatives on one side, moderns on the other.

"How can you take away this part of our history, even the regrettable parts of our history?" asked one modern, who refused to give his name.

"How can you not take away this blemish on our country's honor, defending the hated, the horrible Jews?" a conservative man rose to rebut.

"How can we revise history this way?" a modern woman yelled, moments before three Black Robes rushed to the side of the room and began beating her, and then her husband who tried to intervene.

The rest of the crowd merely watched, as these scenes are common at meetings of the Cleveland School Board.

The outcome was expected - the conservatives have spent considerable money to win seats on the board - but it was bitter for many moderns, nonetheless.

"They teach what they want to teach," said Joe Osteen, a plumber with two kids in high school. "And we're going to become a backwater. Mark my words. The old regime may have been morally corrupt, but at least we had innovation. Now we're raising a bunch of monkeys."


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