At the time, Hamas reacted strongly against the idea,
What wasn't reported was that UNRWA employees also denounced the plan - and engaged in Holocaust denial.
Here is the statement from the Gaza UNRWA union from February 2011:
Peace, mercy and blessings of God
From the premise that everyone has responsibilities, and so as not to repeat the tragedies and mistakes made, we tried through continuous communication with UNRWA management to demonstrate the enormity of what they are doing with the latest travel delegation of our excelling students to go on a trip to America and visit the Holocaust Museum in New York [sic] for the so-called "Holocaust" and try to feed students concepts and ideas about the fake injustices suffered by the Jews. But it seems that the Agency's management did not understand the message well and insisted on the repetition of such trips. They are today preparing for the new journey with the same goals and they have been promised large sums of money in addition to the upcoming initiative to build a curriculum on so-called human rights, which will include passages about the alleged Holocaust.By the way, Essam Da'las was in the news more recently. He is now a senior Hamas official who has been accused of diverting cash away from Gazans and to Hamas and al Qassam leaders. His house was targeted by Israel over the summer.
Based on the above we emphasize the following:
First: the rejection of such trips and this alleged curriculum. We will work with all to raise our voices to stop this unacceptable behavior, which is contrary to our religion and patriotism and humanity.
Secondly, we appeal to parents to take caution and vigilance and not to send their children to dive in the mud and to deal with such fake trips which will certainly affect the ideas of these outstanding students.
Third: We appeal to our fellow teachers not to deal with these trips.
Fourth: We demand the management of the agency [UNRWA] to reconsider its accounts in advance and take advantage of this exorbitant money to build schools and improve the classrooms that cannot accommodate our students and the provision of basic needs for the success of the educational process.
Our colleagues are our colleagues, God willing, we will remain watchful and defend our rights.
Deputy Chief of Staff Union
Essam Da'las
Here he is with Hamas Gaza leader Ismail Haniyeh:
As we've mentioned, Hamas controls UNRWA's union, which means that many UNRWA teachers aren't teaching UN ideas on human rights and coexistence - but Hamas'.
And if the union leaders explicitly say Holocaust is a plot devised by the Jews - what do you think the students are learning about Jews? Not only are they Holocaust deniers, but they are saying that to even learn about it is against their religion and humanity itself!
I've been going through UNRWA teachers' Facebook pages. Many of them are certainly dedicated teachers. But it seems that there is no effort by UNRWA to root out the explicit hate and denial of history that is poisoning the classrooms through teachers for whom basic values like truth and peace simply do not exist.
Today's UNRWA teachers are themselves the products of UNRWA schools. There is no way to get out of this cycle without a major restructuring of the educational part of the agency itself. And this cannot happen as long as the teachers themselves are trained to reward ignorance and hate.
UNRWA ended up caving and didn't teach about the Holocaust to kids in their schools, and chances are that it wasn't because of Hamas threats, but from threats of their own teachers.
All UNRWA posts here.