As the last generation of Holocaust survivors passes away, educators and authors are confronting a critical challenge: how to preserve memory for a generation growing up amid misinformation, radicalization, and denial. Eva Mozes Kor, who survived Auschwitz at age ten, spent her final years advocating for earlier Holocaust education, arguing that waiting until children are twelve or older allows prejudices to form first. Her memoir for young readers, I Will Protect You: A True Story of Twins Who Survived Auschwitz, written with author Danica Davidson and released in 2022, has become a bestseller and is now used in schools nationwide to reach children before their worldviews solidify.
Kor recognized that elementary and middle school students already encounter conspiracy theories, extremist propaganda, antisemitic memes, and Holocaust distortion online. Her book, which details how she and her twin sister Miriam survived Dr. Josef Mengele's medical experiments at Auschwitz, aims to make history legible for young readers without simplifying it. Davidson, who interviewed Kor extensively for the project, notes in her Holocaust Remembrance Day op-ed "Working with survivors to tell their stories, before it's too late" at the Jewish News Syndicate that both Kor and another survivor, Eva Schloss, took such book projects seriously as part of broader Holocaust education efforts.
The urgency of this work is underscored by rising antisemitism and historical ignorance. In the past five years, antisemitic incidents have surged in the U.S. and abroad, while polls show many young Americans cannot name a single Nazi camp or believe the Holocaust is exaggerated. Davidson argues in her article "Holocaust Education Should Start in Elementary School" at Aish that early education can teach critical thinking, the patterns of history, and empathy, preparing children for a world where hate spreads easily online.
Following Kor's death in 2019, Davidson has continued this mission, collaborating with Eva Schloss on a graphic novel titled What Lies Hidden, which highlights paintings made by Schloss's brother Heinz while in hiding. Schloss, known posthumously as Anne Frank's stepsister, dedicated her life to education and memory, much like Kor. Both survivors understood that history, while not repeating exactly, follows patterns that children must learn to recognize to resist recruitment into hate.
The impact of these efforts extends beyond individual stories. Books like I Will Protect You, available at https://www.amazon.com/dp/B093ZQ3LBX/, offer an entry point for children to see history as the lived reality of peers, fostering empathy before prejudices take root. As the last survivors disappear, the responsibility to teach memory falls on educators, authors, and communities, with early education seen as a vital tool against denial and radicalization in an increasingly digital world.
