(Quebec) The defense group of the Jewish community B’nai Brith asks Quebec to better teach the history of the Holocaust at school and denounces an event in a high school in Rawdon where five students recently stood up in class to give a Nazi salute.
B’nai Brith has formally asked Education Minister Bernard Drainville to copy Ontario. After a series of anti-Semitic events at school, the neighboring province will indeed teach the Holocaust from the sixth year of primary school from the next school year.
“You can finish school in Quebec with very little knowledge about one of the saddest chapters of humanity. And then these young people can be the target of online disinformation, the target of people who deny the Holocaust,” denounces in an interview the former Montreal city councilor Marvin Rotrand, now director of the League for Human Rights in B ‘nai Brith.
The Ontario government announced the measure last November, in the wake of a series of high-profile anti-Semitic events in schools. On November 15, B’nai Brith wrote to the Minister of Education, Bernard Drainville, to ask that Quebec emulate its neighbor.
Faced with “a rising tide of anti-Semitism […] the provinces are beginning to realize that teaching about the Holocaust is inadequate in their educational program,” the missive reads.
A Nazi song in the classroom
Quebec is not immune to such episodes, as demonstrated by an event that occurred two weeks ago in Lanaudière, captured by a telephone and shared on TikTok.
CTV has revealed the video in which we see five secondary one students from the Chutes secondary school in Rawdon stand up and give a Nazi salute in the middle of class in front of a substitute teacher. At the same time, the German military song Erikacomposed in 1930 and strongly associated with the Nazi regime, plays in the background.
The Samares School Service Center confirmed the event, which it “deplores”.
“As soon as the management was informed of this situation, the necessary measures were quickly taken with the students and the substitute person. The concern and the objective is to make an educational intervention in order to understand the scope of the gesture and its meaning. Awareness has therefore already been raised with the group and the students have been met,” said the spokesperson for the service center, Maude Jutras.
These images are “shocking” for Marvin Rotrand.
When they are such young students, sometimes they don’t quite know what they are doing, they don’t know that it is extremely hurtful. This is exactly why Ontario decided to act at a young age.
Marvin Rotrand, Director of the League for Human Rights at B’nai Brith
A recent study by a Western University researcher of 3,600 high school students in Canada and the United States finds that one-third believe the Holocaust – the genocide of the Jews by the Nazi regime – was exaggerated or outright deny that it took place.
Better equip teachers
In an email to The Press, the office of the Minister of Education of Quebec denounced the Rawdon event. “The necessary measures have been taken with the students and the substitute person,” writes Bernard Drainville’s press officer, Florence Plourde.
As for imitating Ontario and teaching the Shoah from the sixth grade, Quebec is closing the door. “We have no intention of moving forward at this time,” wrote M.me Plunder.
The expert Sivane Hirsch, consulted by The Press, tends to agree with the position of the Quebec government. “I don’t think the Shoah should be taught in sixth grade. It’s very young to teach such a theme “, says this professor at the University of Quebec at Trois-Rivières who has looked into these sensitive issues.
“On the other hand, I think that these subjects are not taught enough. But it’s not because it’s not enough in the program, ”she nuances.
The government specifies that the program plans to address the concept of genocide at three points during secondary school. Thus, the Holocaust is supposed to be approached from the second secondary, among pupils of 13 or 14 years old, therefore. But this is not always the case, deplores Mme Hirsch.
What we discovered in our research is that even if there is room in the curriculum, teachers hesitate. Not all of them, some teach it very, very well. But it’s not always the case.
Sivane Hirsch, professor at the University of Quebec at Trois-Rivières, about teaching the Holocaust at school
Mme Hirsch notes that some teachers don’t feel equipped enough to teach the Holocaust properly. The subject is delicate. And since the theme is supposed to be tackled at the very end of the school year, it may happen that it is skipped.
“Some people don’t go to see the Holocaust in Secondary II,” she says. We’ll tell them it’s because we’re running out of time, because it’s really at the end of the school year. »
Mme Hirsch has just produced, in collaboration with Sabrina Moisan, professor at the University of Sherbrooke, the teaching guide Studying Genocides. This tool aims precisely to help teachers address these delicate subjects in the classroom.
That said, for her, there is no doubt that genocides, including the Holocaust, are a crucial subject that must be better taught in Quebec.
“I am of Jewish origin. And two of my three children have experienced things like this, heil Hitler in class towards them,” she says. “Often, young people do not realize the content of their gesture. This is why it is very important to educate them about their meaning. »