In the midst of the summer recess, the French Education Ministry and
textbook publishers decided to delete the word "Holocaust" from
schoolbooks and replace it with the terms "World War II" and the "war
of destruction".
Meanwhile the term "Nakba" (Arab for catastrophe) was introduced for
the first time into the history books in the chapter about Palestine.
"Nakba" has become fashionable in France and "Holocaust" has been
tossed out, a Jewish activist said. In the streets and in the French
press the word "Holocaust" is still used to describe the destruction
of the Jews by the Nazis.
Writer Claude Lanzmann uncovered the new Holocaust terminology and
write an article in Le Monde objecting to it. "This is a form
of Holocaust denial," he wrote.
The Education Minister has been accused of deliberately distorting
Nazi crimes during the Holocaust and including them in a study program
with other wartime crimes, particularly efforts to compare Nazi crimes
to Palestinian distress.
Right-wing Education Minister Luc Chatel was quick to deny a directive
had been issued to delete the word "Holocaust," claiming it was not
expunged since it had never been mentioned in the official curriculum.
Following Lanzmann's book, Holocaust, the word came into use in
France to describe the destruction of European Jewry.
Investigations by Jewish organizations revealed that the initiative
was begun by senior history inspectors who started targeting the
Holocaust years ago and surreptitiously erased the words from the
books without Education Ministry approval. Inspector's Bulletin No. 7
says, "The word `Holocaust' must be removed from guides."
