United States | News & Politics

The Holocaust was unique in the industrialization of genocide. The Nazi party organized the state around the process, using industrial technology to track, move and kill millions of people in an efficient manner. It was also very well documented and was publicized in a way, which made people really aware of what was occurring. As horrible as genocide is, at any scale, most are fairly limited in geography and organization. The Nazis showed us just how bad things can be, if we bend the resources of a modern, industrial state, to those ends. So, I'd tend to disagree with Walz's thesis that the Holocaust wasn't unique. Though, I would still agree that it should be taught in context with other genocides which have happened and which are happening today. It can become an example of just how bad a genocide can become. But, the goal should be to teach students about the causes, and processes of genocides. So that, we hopefully will try to stop them from occurring.

That said, that the modern Israeli State uses the horrible things, which happened to Jews in the early 20th century, to justify doing similarly horrible things to Palestinians today, is downright atrocious. It cheapens the horrors faced by Jews at the hands of the Nazis.