Holocaust education now law in Delaware

DOVER, Del. (AP) — As a first-generation American and the child of parents who escaped Nazi Germany, state Rep. Debra Heffernan’s perspective has impacted her understanding of how atrocities like the Holocaust happened.

“It really did change how I understood the scariness of how the Holocaust could happen to others in present time if we’re not careful,” she said. “And yet, other people … didn’t find out about it until they maybe learned about it in high school. They didn’t know and grow up understanding the horrors and how careful we had to be and how it’s everyone’s job to stand up for others.”

But now, that will be part of curriculum in Delaware.

Rep. Heffernan, D-Bellefonte, sponsored House Bill 318, which requires school districts and charters to implement curriculum on the Holocaust and genocide for students in grades 6 through 12. The bill was signed into law last month and is set to begin for the 2021-22 school year. Sen. Harris McDowell, D-Wilmington, was the lead Senate sponsor for the bill.

As Holocaust survivors are getting older — and with this year’s 75th anniversary of the freeing of Auschwitz, the largest German Nazi concentration camp — Rep. Heffernan said this is the perfect time to make the bill a law, to ensure there’s no lapse in remembering history.

The bill becoming law codifies what has been a yearslong effort from the Jewish and interfaith community in Delaware, Rep. Heffernan said. The bill passed with bipartisan support in the House and Senate, with no dissenting votes.

Rep. Heffernan credits Ann Jaffe, a Holocaust survivor living in Delaware, for speaking to the House and Senate about her experiences.

“I have devoted the last 40 years of my life sharing my experience as an eyewitness to the true events of the Holocaust with thousands of Delaware...