RIALTO, Calif. – An eighth-grade English assignment that was meant to develop students’ critical thinking skills has, instead, created some 50 new Holocaust deniers.
In May, Rialto Unified School District leaders came under intense criticism after it was revealed the district’s roughly 2,000 eighth-grade students were given an in-class essay assignment in which they were asked to consider if the Holocaust was “an actual historical event” or if it might have been “a propaganda tool that was used for political and monetary gain.”
Students were directed to “research” the issue and take a position on it, supporting their conclusion with “textual evidence” – printouts of information culled from three websites, one of which was a Holocaust denial site.
When news of the assignment broke, Rialto Unified school officials attempted to soothe angry community members by stating that none of the students actually argued that the Holocaust did not occur.
But an investigation by Los Angeles Daily News proves otherwise.
The Los Angeles Daily News asked for and received copies of the student essays, and had staff members read through them.
The staffers found “at least 50 essays (that) denied or doubted the Holocaust occurred.”
“Even many students who agreed the Holocaust occurred said there were good reasons to believe it had not or that elements of the historical record were actually hoaxes,” the Daily News reports.
The paper provides several chilling excerpts.
One student declared there was no way the Holocaust occurred because the Nazis “would have had to have killed 187 people an hour in order to kill 6 million people. Therefore it is impossible.”
Another flatly asserted that the Holocaust is “a profitable hoax made by the Jews to obtain land, money and power.”
One student concluded: “With the evidence that was given to me, it clearly was obvious” that the Holocaust never occurred “and I wouldn’t know why anyone would think otherwise.”It is important to remember, the Superintendent of the school is named MOHAMMED Z. ISLAM.