The main gate at Auschwitz. Photo: Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial and Museum.

JNS.org – Proposed legislation, if passed in the US House of Representatives, would grant money raised through donations to American schools as part of the Holocaust Education Assistance Program.

A draft of the “Never Again Education Act” calls Holocaust education “a national imperative to educate students in the United States so that they may explore the lessons that the Holocaust provides for all people, sensitize communities to the circumstances that gave rise to the Holocaust, and help youth be less susceptible to the falsehood of Holocaust denial and distortion and to the destructive messages of hate that arise from Holocaust denial and distortion.”

NY Rep. Carolyn Maloney, the lead sponsor of the legislation, will promote the bill on Tuesday at the Olga Lengyel Institute for Holocaust Studies and Human Rights in New York City, accompanied by representatives of Hadassah, B’nai B’rith International and the Association of Holocaust Organizations.

Also sponsoring the bill are Reps. Peter Roskam, R-Ill.; Ted Deutch, D-Fla.; Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, R-Fla.; Eliot Engel, D-N.Y.; Kay Granger, R-Texas; Nita Lowey, D-N.Y.; and Dan Donovan, R-N.Y. Lowey and Granger both sit on the House of Appropriations Subcommittee.