Oakwood High launches Holocaust and genocide studies course with Sinclair credit; students say it reshaped their understanding

Oakwood High School this year launched a semester-long Holocaust and genocide studies course offered for three college credits through Sinclair Community College, a teacher and students told the board May 12.

"Because we have more time than a typical college course...I have added in materials on genocide studies," said Matt Deters, a high school social studies teacher, describing course content that covers the Holocaust and other twentieth- and twenty-first-century genocides including Namibia, Rwanda, Cambodia, Armenia and modern examples students investigated in Sudan, Myanmar and China.

Deters said the course emphasizes "people" not numbers: victims, survivors and perpetrators. He uses primary accounts such as Primo Levi's Survival in Auschwitz and survivor testimony, and he asks students to study individuals and families to humanize victims and examine why ordinary people committed atrocities. He discussed the concept Hannah Arendt popularized as "the banality of evil" and cited Gustav Gilbert's view that a common characteristic among perpetrators was "a lack of empathy."

Four students who took the course described its effect. Senior Natalia Alvarez said the class taught her "how systematic, intentional, and organized" the Holocaust was and helped her compare other genocides. Senior Robert Einhorn called it "the most important class I've ever taken," saying it showed how quickly ordinary people can become perpetrators under conditions of fear and misinformation. Junior Ruth Glaser, one of the students who identifies as Jewish, said the course gave her "arguments when I'm sticking up for my religion and my faith" and described researching a survivor project. Senior Emery Oskin (name as introduced in the presentation) said studying the Warsaw Ghetto uprising taught him the importance of knowing who the victims and perpetrators were and warned against being a bystander.

The board praised the presentation, and Deters and the students received public thanks and encouragement from the board president after the presentation. The course is administered during the school day, includes survivor testimony, primary documents, and a final project, and is intended to foster empathy and historical understanding among students.