History Books
As an aside to the article by guest blogger, abravanel, I read today in Kathimerini that the Academy of Athens is the latest body to issue a damning verdict of a history textbook for 12-year-olds.
They believe that it skirts over some of the key moments in Greek history
I am not sure which key moments they mean. I would think that totally ignoring Greek Jewish history is a glaring omission. When I find out more I will post.
Read the short article here
Technorati: Jewish history, Greek Jews, Greece, history
World Aids Day on December 1st, 2008
Peace Blogging 2 on September 26th, 2008
High Treason in Greece on September 23rd, 2008
Peace Blogging on September 15th, 2008
Less Than 1% Petition on September 12th, 2008
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Reader Comments
The schoolbook DOES have references to Jewish history.
The Academy has issued a disclaimer http://www.ana.gr/anaweb/user/showprel?service=3&maindoc=5165789
It is sad that Kathimerini chose to ignore it.
Also Mikis Theodorakis wrote a related awful article in Kathimerini on Sunday http://news.kathimerini.gr/4dcgi/_w_articles_columns_100073_18/03/2007_219766
I’ve read the new book, (Antibaro which is against it has it scanned -> http://www.antibaro.gr/istoria.php#biblio).
Practically it has 2 mentions in jewish history, one very positive and one IMO less.
1) The first one is a table on p96 where it states the composition of the population of Salonica in 1913 and shows that the jews were the majority in the city. It doesn’t comment anything else but it is a huge step forward since at least kids learn that jews existed before WW2.
2) The second one is the fact that indeed it talks about the Shoah but it still isn’t listed among the greek casualties which indicative that it isn’t seen as a greek tragedy.Instead it is found among the general “world” ww2 tragedies like Hiroshima and not among the greek chapter of Resistance and executions.
Also among the casualties of Greece during WW2 on p111 still the figures do not include the greek jews. One could note that since a table for world casualties does exist, they could mention that the Shoah concerned 6.000.000 but I try not to be excessive.
Though at least a definition of the Holocaust is given there is a picture of the deportation of the polish(?!) jews and not even the famous Pl.Eleftherias photo from Salonicca.
If I may advance a personal evaluation, I think that on the Shoah there isn’t a deliberate attempt to hide it but simply it is the consequence that greek jews are not viewed among “real greeks” and so the 50000-60000 greek jews aren’t really greek losses.
My post concerned the high school book;all the remarks about that more detailed history textbook for 17yrs old remain completely valid, since it hasn’t changed AFAIK. So this book for 12yrs old is a step forward but still it is clearly a direct descendant of the already existent books.