https://medium.com/gen/why-banning-dark-periods-of-history-from-schools-is-unpatriotic-2263575a8527

It’s now written in US laws that history should not be taught if it might cause students to feel uncomfortable, guilty, or distressed on account of their race. Under these circumstances, a historical event like the 1921 Tulsa race massacre would hardly have a chance to make it into the classroom, given that it involves white people burning down much of the wealthy Black neighborhood of Greenwood, leaving hundreds of Black people dead, ten thousand homeless, and none of the survivors ever compensated for their losses. No arrests from the mob were made, and immediate effort was taken to erase the massacre from collective memory. Lots of potential for emotional unease.

I grew up learning over and over about the crimes my grandparents’ generation had committed. I studied all the cruelties, watched the documentaries, visited the camps, listened to their survivors. For me, the piles of teeth did it. The piles of teeth the Nazis carefully collected from their victims in the camps. Or the barrels of hair, or stacks of bones. These horrific images I was shown as part of my education about the truth taught me to feel history. Feel it as a personal matter. Six million Jews killed is an abstract fact hard to connect to. But the pictures brought humanity to the number. They erased the emotional distance to the past, shaping me, shaping the future. I’m the link.

What it did not result in, concerned parents and politicians will be relieved to know, is making me think that Germany is per se an immoral and racist country and that I should feel apologetic for being German. It did not make me feel personally guilty for the Nazi crimes, nor did I conclude that I’m evil by heritage. It did not program me to hate myself, my family, or my country.

It did, however, make me unequivocally aware of my personal duty to help prevent history from ever repeating itself.