The UAE will be adding Holocaust education to its school curriculums, the UAE Embassy in the US confirmed on Twitter last week.
"In the wake of the historic Abraham Accords, the UAE will now include the Holocaust in the curriculum for primary and secondary schools," was written in the tweet which added a quote by one of the Emirati brokers of the Accords Ali al-Nuaimi.
"Memorializing the victims of the Holocaust is crucial," he said. "Public figures failed to speak the truth because a political agenda hijacked their narrative, yet a tragedy on the scale of the Holocaust targets not only Jews but humanity as a whole."
The UAE is the first Arab state to officially include Holocaust education in its school curriculum.
"This means a lot," said US Ambassador to Israel Tom Nides in a comment to the UAE Embassy's tweet. "Great to see it coming to fruition."
'Holocaust education is imperative for humanity'
"Pleased to see this important step being taken by the United Arab Emirates," wrote the US Special Envoy to Monitor Antisemitism Deborah Lipstadt. "Holocaust education is an imperative for humanity and too many countries, for too long, continue to downplay the Shoah [Holocaust] for political reasons. I commend the UAE for this step and expect others to follow suit soon."
“The United Arab Emirates has been leading the way in peace and tolerance education in the region for some years,” said CEO of Institute for Monitoring Peace and Cultural Tolerance in School Education (IMPACT-se) Marcus Sheff. "IMPACT-se is delighted that they have taken this important step in educating about the Shoah and humbled to have partnered with the Ministry of Education.”
The UAE has been leading the Arab world in its approach to Holocaust education. In November, Dubai hosted an event in memorial of Kristallnacht, the 1938 pogroms in Germany in which about 100 Jews were murdered while tens of thousands were rounded up and sent to concentration camps.
At the event was Holocaust survivor Eve Kugler who told her story as the keynote speaker.