>NY Times, Oct. 7, 2000
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>IDEAS
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>At Last, Recognition and Praise for the Resistance in Nazi Germany
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>By SHAREEN BLAIR BRYSAC
[For an elaboration on the German working class's role in the resistance, check out: http://www.newdemocracyworld.org/facing.htm http://www.newdemocracyworld.org/facing2.htm http://www.newdemocracyworld.org/sources.htm The intro as a teaser:]
FACING HISTORY: HOW WORKING CLASS GERMANS FOUGHT THE NAZIS, AND HOW LIBERAL FOUNDATIONS LIE ABOUT IT
by John Spritzler (Part 1 of 2)
A popular course for middle and high school students about the Holocaust gives a false account of antisemitism and related events in Nazi-era Germany carefully designed to drive home the lesson that most people are prone to bigotry and are a dangerous force. The course, called "Facing History and Ourselves" (FHAO), is funded by liberal foundations and corporations (and in the past, grants from the U.S. Department of Education) and wealthy individuals. It reaches one million students a year in schools across the country. Foundations and corporate leaders support "Facing History and Ourselves" because it helps discredit the central idea of democracy -- that ordinary people are fit to rule society.
FHAO's main resource book, Facing History and Ourselves: Holocaust and Human Behavior, is a 576-page collection of short readings and questions carefully selected to convey a negative view of people by lying about the facts. Contrary to the views promoted by FHAO, the true facts about Germany during the Holocaust show that 1) working class Germans fought the Nazis; 2) antisemitism did not come from ordinary people; and 3) anti-semitism was a weapon used by Germany's industrial and aristocratic elite to attack not only the Jewish minority but the entire working class.