Report points to imbalance in North Rhine-Westphalia textbooks — Jerusalem Post
A study by the Institute for Monitoring Peace and Cultural Tolerance in School Education (IMPACT-se) in Germany found that textbooks for senior secondary students in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia provide thorough coverage of Jewish history and the Holocaust. At the same time, according to the report’s authors, their presentation of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict contains significant imbalances. This was reported by the Jerusalem Post.
The researchers analyzed 12 history, religion and social studies textbooks used in Gymnasiums, Germany’s academic track of secondary education. They examined materials for the final three years of study before the Abitur exams and assessed them according to international standards developed on the basis of UNESCO declarations.
Coverage of Jewish history and the Holocaust
According to the report, the educational materials present Judaism as a contemporary and multifaceted component of German society, rather than merely a historical precursor to Christianity. The textbooks also explain the roots of Christian antisemitism, reject the idea of collective Jewish guilt for the crucifixion of Jesus and recall that Jesus and his first followers were Jews.
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The chapters on the Holocaust trace the transformation of longstanding prejudices into Nazi racial theories, propaganda and discriminatory laws that preceded the murder of six million people. Students study primary sources, including the diaries of Victor Klemperer and Heinrich Himmler’s Posen speech, as well as various forms of Jewish resistance—from hiding and rescue operations to uprisings in the Warsaw Ghetto, Treblinka and Sobibor.
Remarks on the Middle East topic
At the same time, the study’s authors believe that the textbooks’ effort to present different views of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict sometimes creates false equivalences. As an example, they cite the parallel use of headings about Israel’s War of Independence and the Nakba, as well as about the Six-Day War and the Naksa.
The report also criticizes one textbook for placing a photograph of an Israeli military operation in the West Bank next to an image of an armed Hamas fighter under the heading “Mutual threats and violence,” without identifying Hamas as a terrorist organization. According to the researchers, the materials set out Arab objections to the 1947 UN partition plan in detail, but devote considerably less attention to the security risks and territorial fragmentation concerning the Jewish side.
