Starting in the fall, juniors and seniors at Oak Park and River Forest High School (OPRF) will have the opportunity to study the Holocaust in the context of preventing current and future antisemitism in the Chicago area and beyond.

“After the Holocaust, the world made a promise-‘Never Again.’ The aim of this course is to help ensure that promise starts to come to fruition,” begins the syllabus written by history teacher Michael Soffer.

The course found its origin the week after the shooting at the Tree of Life*Or L’Simcha synagogue in Pittsburgh last year. “We were sitting with some friends at shul and they asked what we were doing at school to combat the rise of antisemitism, and the answer was we weren’t doing enough,” Soffer said. “So, I started toying around with the idea of what a class might look like as a response to the increased manifestation, locally and nationally, of antisemitism.”

Students at OPRF have encountered antisemitism in the form of spray-painted swastikas on campus in the last several years, but many have not studied the Holocaust before. “A lot of secondary scholarship suggested that the Holocaust is uniquely effective in reducing antipathy towards the ‘other,’ partially because it’s so black and white morally and, also, it happened elsewhere so there’s no defensiveness. That makes it a more effective learning mechanism,” Soffer said.

In addition to scholarly sources, Soffer sought advice from local rabbis like Rabbi Max Weiss of Oak Park Temple. “Living in a suburb with a substantial but not large Jewish presence, there is antisemitism; there’s also, like in every community, racism and ‘othering’ of people who aren’t like us,” Weiss said. “Having a class on the Holocaust can help people understand what these sorts of thoughts can do, taken to an extreme, and what antisemitism and racism can lead to.”

The curriculum will begin with the history of antisemitism progressing into the Holocaust. It will also focus on the psychology of genocide and the roles of others in the conflict, including bystanders, rescuers, resisters, and perpetrators. Towards the end of the semester, students will learn how to fight back against Holocaust denial and antisemitism today by becoming “upstanders,” a phenomenon where a person learns how to advocate for others instead of being a bystander to oppression.

An integral part of the class will be learning the individual stories of the Holocaust, including victims, survivors, and even perpetrators. For one modern example, Soffer will use the case of Reinhold Kulle, a former SS guard who worked in the OPRF’s district for 24 years. He even served as the head custodian of the school. The revelation shocked the community, Soffer said, because the public had always thought him to be “so polite.”

Weiss, who teaches a 10th grade class at his synagogue, has heard “many of the kids are excited to take the class. They want to deepen their understanding of the Holocaust and support the idea that this class is being taught in their high school.

“It’s really connected to lived experience,” Weiss said. “This isn’t just a straight history class; it’s how the lessons of history can guide us in how we live our lives today.”