Things overheard in the hairdressers. Couldn’t believe my ears this afternoon.

[ChocolateDoll]

Sat with dye on my hair listening to this conversation taking place next to me. Didn’t know whether to laugh or cry

HAIRDRESSER: What you going to do on your holidays, then?

CLIENT: Well, we’re planning to visit Auschwitz.

HAIRDRESSER: Oh, right. What you gonna do there then? Just chill out for a bit?

CLIENT: Umm...well uhhh....it’s a concentration camp, you know?

HAIRDRESSER: oh right....sorry.....thought it was like a resort or something.

I did History all the way to GCSE and never covered the Holocaust. There's loads of important stuff that's happened in the world that the national curriculum doesn't cover.

And thats why shes a hairdresser! ( nothing wrong with being a hairdresser before anyone jumps down my throat)

I’m amazed that people who went to state school in the last 10-20 years didn’t cover WWII and the Holocaust. The school I went to covered it for four years straight! I don’t recall anybody not knowing what it was beforehand either. Granted one girl denied it happened at all which was worrying in itself.

I wasn’t taught about the Rwandan genocide, but I remember it being on the news. Same as Kosovo.

I also know about the Armenian genocide, the Khmer Rouge, Stalin’s Gulags.

Fully appreciate that nobody can know everything about everything (my science knowledge is filled with holes, for example) but there really does seem to be a death of natural desire to learn going on, if people are managing to reach adulthood without even hearing about the Holocaust.

Toby

Adding “there’s nothing wrong with being a hairdresser” to your comment doesn’t make you look any less like a supercilious arse.

HTH.

I used to be a German teacher and one of the topics i was studying with my sixth form group was the Weimar Republic. After about three weeks one of my pupils piped up: where exactly is this Weimar Republic? It makes you feel like an epic fail.

I blame the parents

This for me is one of those "only on Mumsnet" things. It is horribly naive and short sighted to believe that all parents sit around the dinner table discussing world history (and even have knowledge of it). My work mostly involves visiting families whose dc struggle in school and it is utterly shocking how some children are raised. They may have the latest games consoles but have never stepped inside a bookshop or a library. There are parents who actively discourage education "oh you don't want to be a swot!" and reading as a pastime is laughed at and viewed as a waste of time. There are parents who are very keen to get their children educated but they have not been much further than their home towns so have very little knowledge about the next county let alone accurate knowledge about an event that occurred 5 0 years before their birth.

OTOH the hairdresser may not have been listening or may not have been familiar with the correct pronunciation of the word. A mum recently to!d me they were going to Marrybella on holiday. It sounded like some sort of caravan park to me but when she said they would go for a day into Fun-grolla I realised she meant Marbella.

I'm 66, and learnt nothing about ww2 at school.

I know what Auschwitz is. But it's a day visit, not a holiday base. I too might have misunderstood and asked 'Have they built a resort there too?'

I did history GCSE and we only covered medicine, Ireland and native Americans. Earlier in school aged about 12 on a trip we had to sit in a room showing non stop videos of the holocaust for 5mins but it wasn't really explained to us. I remember being really scared by it. It was at a museum and some boys in our class were punished for laughing.

We didn't cover it at school, but then at my age it wasn't a 'topic' that needed to be taught in schools, it was family knowledge. One grandfather was a prisoner of war in Burma, the other a prisoner of war in Japan.

I can imagine if you're 18 today, your mother is 36, and her mother is 54, then perhaps it will all go over your head even if it is part of the curriculum. Because it's nothing to do with you and yours.

PollyFlinderz - did the hairdresser run out because she'd been seeing your husband as in seeing?

American. Windsor. Flight path. Amazing how many people have heard that .

Also at the hairdressers, I was explaining I worked for a charity. The hairdresser, young twenty something, thought people who worked for charities weren’t paid (I said some aren’t of course). But also why did we have to constantly raise money for Africa/famine when so much had already been raised.

I love my hairdresser - but it’s amazing what you assume everyone knows or understands. I am sure their are things in her understanding I am completely oblivious too as well

@AthelstaneTheUnready
"It will all go over your head because it's not part of you and yours"
Bloody hell. I honestly pity you, you ignorant fool.

My son learned about the holocaust in year 5. He was so upset and traumatised for weeks 😕

Oy.

I am trying to imagine why it is that an 18 year old hairdresser would not know about Auschwitz.

I am not saying that everyone who doesn't know, doesn't know because they don't care. I am speculating as to why this particular one might not.

@ElizabethMainwaring

Sadly there are youngsters like this, probably people about my age too 41 who do not have any clue on History and General knowledge.

I was pushing my son along in his pram last year and was behind 3 children who looked between 8-10 years of age. It started spitting and I heard the boy say ‘oh no I think it’s raining’, one of the girls got out her phone, pressed the screen a couple of times before answering ‘no it’s not, my app says it’s not going to rain today’ as drops of water landed on all of our heads, my mouth fell open lol

I don’t think it’s snobby to be shocked that someone didnt know about Auschwitz, or that someone didn’t know about the Holocaust. It’s not like people are clutching pearls that their hairdresser can’t speak Latin - millions and millions of people died and it wasn’t that long ago. The same people, and more, are being increasingly persecuted.

I agree - and there is a Holocaust Memorial Day each year now (27th January), as a reminder (not that we should need one) that millions of men, women and children died - horribly - because of who they were. It is a reminder too that all over the world people are being murdered for the same reason - because they re the "wrong" religion, race or colour - even if it isn't on the same dreadful, almost unbelievable, scale.

It was because of the Holocaust that all of our western border were made open to refugees - during the war strict quotas had been enforced, meaning that many people who could have escaped ended up in death camps and ghettos. All governments vowed that that would never happen again. But it is.

My mother's friend went to Cuba a few years ago. My mother asked me "Is Cuba still part of Russia or is it a country of its own now?" She seemed to be under the impression that it was a couple of miles down the rad from Moscow.

these were two English speakers trying to twist their tongues / get their ears round a German word.

"Holocaust" is a Greek word - it is a sacrifice which is totally burned upon the altar.

We did the Tudors and such at school nothing about the holocaust or any wars. When I put the boy in the stripped pjs on tv because it was on I honestly had no idea what it was about. I’m 26. My brother however 23 did a school trip to the camp but we didn’t ever actually talk about what we did at school Just Mum told me it had cost X to send him to Y we went to different schools.

50 year old here and I never studied any 20th century history at my grammar school An day consequently knew virtually nothing about WW1 and WW2 when I left school.

Have a very knowledgable a 10 year old DS and just asked him if he knew what Auswitch (sp?) was and to my great surprise he said he didn’t. I think it must have come up on conversation before.

Coincidentally the book, The boy in the striped pajamas arrived from Amazon this morning. Hopefully he will know the meaning soon.

If I visit my hairdresser I can chat for an hour. My hairdresser is pretty much forced to chat for 8 hours a day - often about the same thing.

I can well imagine they zone out a bit.

At the time that brexit was voted for (I'm in Ireland) I was at the hairdressers and it came up. She said "it's going to cost a lot of money. Thousands. Probably even hundreds of thousands"... I just smiled and agreed while thinking hmm probably a tad more than that...

Abbifa 😂