Gov. Brown signs bill: Oregon schools must teach the Holocaust – By Associated Press Staff (KPTV) / July 15 2019
SALEM, Ore. (AP) — Oregon will require public schools to teach about the Holocaust and other genocides.
Gov. Kate Brown signed a bill Monday to add Holocaust instruction to the school curriculum starting in the 2019-2020 school year. Eleven other states require some level of genocide education in schools.
The law was introduced by 14-year old Claire Sarnowski from suburban Lake Oswego. She came up for the idea through an unlikely friendship with 92-year-old Holocaust survivor Alter Wiener, who died last year after he was struck by a car.
Sarnowski told lawmakers earlier this year that Holocaust education should be required in all schools to ensure history doesn’t repeat itself.
The bill comes as memory of the Holocaust fades. A recent poll found that two-thirds American millennials surveyed could not identify what the Auschwitz concentration camp was.
Oregon Gov. Kate Brown (KPTV file image)
