"One of the most common mistakes is not having a clear rationale for why you're teaching it," Fredlake said. "In a U.S. government class, part of the rationale could be, 'I want students to understand that democracy is a fragile thing.'"

Fredlake said one of the biggest challenges he runs into through nationwide outreach is helping teachers understand Holocaust awareness can be included in curriculum that meets guidelines for No Child Left Behind.

"There's almost no language arts standard that you can't meet and still talk about the Holocaust," he said.

In Utah, Robert Austin, social studies specialist at the Office of Education, recently attended a meeting hosted by the Memorial Museum in Denver.

Austin said his office is working to ensure teachers have the resources they need to teach the topic of the Holocaust and genocide appropriately.

"It's such a horrific event in history and such an important event, it's absolutely vital that teachers, when they teach on topics like this, do it using best resources," he said.

And many Utah educators are incorporating it. Drussel has been crafting her own Holocaust awareness curri- culum for the past decade.

In addition to her fellowship, she has toured former concentration camps in the Czech Republic and Poland with a Holocaust survivor.

"Hearing the words of a survivor explain to me what happened when nobody helped," she said. "It made it more clear to me to tell kids, 'You have to be tolerant, you have to be accepting.'"

Utah's Holocaust Remembrance

What: Yom HaShoah ceremony in remembrance of the Holocaust

When: Friday, noon.

Where: Salt Lake City Main Library, 210 E. 400 South.

For more information on the Holocaust, visit: www.ushmm.org

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E-mail: dbulkeley@desnews.com