ABSTRACT
Regardless of whether the initial discourse was limited or more substantial, the formal and direct teaching of the Holocaust to Jewish students did not begin until the 1960s, and Holocaust education in US public schools did not begin until the early 1970s. The rise of Holocaust consciousness, memory, and education in the United States since the 1960s is well documented. The parallels and practices can be accounted for in terms of the centrist intellectual environment of the postwar years, which encouraged American educators to avoid controversial discussions. By the end of the 1930s, leading American scholars recognised the persecution of the Jews in a vague sense, and made passing references to it. Although Myrdal avoided universalising the Holocaust by applying it to American blacks, he accurately predicted that African American leaders would make this connection. The most prominent educators addressing race prejudice and antisemitism in the US were affiliated with the cultural gifts–intercultural education movement.
