An education professor whose father was a Holocaust survivor recounts a journey to visit World War II concentration camps in Czechoslovakia, Poland, and Germany. He realized that Nazis were systematic exterminators, and cities had been sanitized to banish unseemly memories. Today vigilance and character education are essential. (MLH)

Until recently the Holocaust was largely ignored in history books and literature, leaving most students without even the basic knowledge of an event that can and should have meaning for them. Nothing can really "explain" it, but literature, because it is concerned with feelings and conveys emotions, can move young people to an empathetic…