So a school district nixed Maus from their curriculum, to be replaced by something more "age-appropriate." IIRC they didn't cite a specific replacement title, but it will probably be something like John Boyne's "The Boy in the Striped Pajamas."

— Gwen C. Katz (@gwenckatz) January 29, 2022

It's also a terrible way to teach the Holocaust.

I'm not going to exhaustively enumerate the book's flaws–others have done so–but I'll summarize the points that are common to this phenomenon in various contexts.

— Gwen C. Katz (@gwenckatz) January 29, 2022

Second, the emphasis on historical innocence. Bruno isn't antisemitic. He has no idea that anything bad is happening. He happily befriends a Jewish boy with absolutely no prejudice.

— Gwen C. Katz (@gwenckatz) January 29, 2022

In Maus, by contrast, the children are not innocent. They are perpetrators of injustice just like adults. pic.twitter.com/sQEYCFUBJa

— Gwen C. Katz (@gwenckatz) January 29, 2022

Third, nonspecificity. The Boy in the Striped Pajamas turns a specific historical atrocity into a parable about all forms of bigotry and injustice. I'm sure Boyne thinks he's being very profound. But the actual effect is to blunt and erase the atrocity.

— Gwen C. Katz (@gwenckatz) January 29, 2022

And that's our fourth point. Bad things can happen, but only abstractly. Someone's dad disappears. He's just…gone. How? Who knows. People stand around looking hungry and unhappy and saying "It's not very nice in here."

— Gwen C. Katz (@gwenckatz) January 29, 2022

Maus's description of the gas chambers, meanwhile… pic.twitter.com/yfbPpGwoVU

— Gwen C. Katz (@gwenckatz) January 29, 2022

Finally, fifth: Fiction.

However much poor little Bruno and Schmuel might rend your heartstrings, you can ultimately retreat into the knowledge that they aren't real and they didn't really die.

— Gwen C. Katz (@gwenckatz) January 29, 2022

One of the striking things about Maus is how big the cast is and how few of them survived. pic.twitter.com/JIfjYxT7KK

— Gwen C. Katz (@gwenckatz) January 29, 2022

Thus, books like The Boy in the Striped Pajamas are not an age-appropriate equivalent way to teach the Holocaust, but a false construction of history.

This ends the first part of the thread. But there's more…

— Gwen C. Katz (@gwenckatz) January 29, 2022

It might mean replacing Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave or Solomon Northup's Twelve Years a Slave with modern historical fiction, for example.

Wars, the Civil Rights movement, Apartheid: any "icky" part of history can be a target.

— Gwen C. Katz (@gwenckatz) January 29, 2022

The broad trend is destruction and recreation of history: The actual events, as narrated by the people they happened to, are declared unacceptable in their current state, and are replaced with books tailored to modern sensibilities, which are then declared the "correct" account.

— Gwen C. Katz (@gwenckatz) January 29, 2022

We need to reject this trend whenever it occurs in all areas of history. We must read and teach true accounts written by the people who really experienced these events. There is no other honest account of history.

— Gwen C. Katz (@gwenckatz) January 29, 2022

When a thread like this gets big everyone assumes you're an expert, so: This thread is nothing but one random individual's thoughts. I am not a Holocaust survivor/descendant or a Holocaust scholar. Please talk to actual experts if you wish to learn more.

— Gwen C. Katz (@gwenckatz) January 30, 2022