Update: On February 27, the Holocaust education proposal was modified after concerns from parents. The French education ministry's advisory group has proposed that an entire classroom might be paired with a young victim of the Holocaust.

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New York, NY, February 25, 2008 … The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) today praised French President Nicholas Sarkozy's innovative proposal for schools to instill the lessons of the Holocaust in young people by linking individual students with each of the 11,000 French Jewish children murdered by the Nazis during World War II.

"As the number of survivors diminishes over time, so does the opportunity for schoolchildren to establish an intimate link as a means of profoundly instilling in them the lessons of the Holocaust," said Abraham H. Foxman, ADL National Director, a Holocaust survivor who was hidden from the Nazis by his Polish-Catholic nursemaid.  "President Sarkozy's initiative would create a personal connection that will stand the test of time and serve every generation."

In a letter to President Sarkozy, ADL praised the proposed educational initiative as "creative and important" and said that it could serve as a model for other European leaders to adopt in promoting Holocaust education, awareness and remembrance in the schools.

Under the President's proposal, French school students would "adopt" the memory of one of the 11,000 Jewish children in France killed in the Holocaust, learning about the selected child's background and fate.

The Anti-Defamation League, founded in 1913, is the world's leading organization fighting anti-Semitism through programs and services that counteract hatred, prejudice and bigotry.