GATESTONE
by Soeren Kern
June 10, 2015

A debate has erupted in Germany over whether Muslim students should be exempted from mandatory visits to former concentration camps as part of Holocaust education programs. The dispute centers on a proposal that would require students in all secondary schools in the southern state of Bavaria to visit Holocaust memorials as part of the school curriculum. Such visits are already compulsory for students who attend the Gymnasium (a type of secondary school with a strong emphasis on academic learning), and the proposal would extend that requirement to eighth- and ninth-grade students in all other types of secondary schools, including special-needs schools. The proposal, sponsored by a political party called the Free Voters (Freie Wähler), calls for the official educational curriculum to be amended to make it mandatory for students to visit the Bavarian concentration camp memorials in Dachau und Flossenbürg and the Deutsch-Deutsches Museum in Mödlareuth. READ MORE