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.

Not at all Marie - and I know what you mean about the title.

nailiak

I agree with everything you have said - there have been more holocausts than The Holocaust - but the very fact that the German determination to expunge Judaism from the face of the earth is considered the definition of such horrors tells us that there is something about it which touches a chord in our psyche - even if we can't define what it is - which reverberates through us as no other does.

In terms of numbers, Hitler was a rank amateur compared to Stalin and Mao; in terms of horror, though . . . there is something particularly dreadful, particularly horrifying - a particular lesson to learn from this particular obscenity.

And rape, mutialtion and sexual violence being used as a systematic form of oppression in Rwanda is despicable beyond comprehension.

Tragically nailak this sexual violence is, and always has been, a weapon of war. And it is perpetrated on the most vulnerable - the women and the children. A horrific example was the Rape of Nanking (still denied/excused by Japan to this day). The horror was beyond imagining.

I've just read the whole thread.

Sorry but it is not sneering or snobbery to be shocked that the OP's hairdresser had not heard of Auschwitz and the person who said that it may have been heard out of context - well I am not sure there is really any other context is there? It's not as though it is known for it's wonderful cheese or healing spa waters is it?

I think the fact that she is a hairdresser is a red herring though. I have three very close friends, two of them were private/grammar school/university education and went on to have very successful middle class professional careers. The third one is a hairdresser, very working class background. The first two read crap like 50 Shades and watch Love Island, the hairdresser is the most politically engaged person I know, she is totally up with her current affairs and is reading the Tattooist of Auschwitz as we speak.

The first two when I was telling them about atrocities carried on in the Far East during WWII, didn't have a clue what I was talking about and just said that they hadn't done History O level at school. We are all in our 50's, I just cannot believe that their learning finished when they left school. Most of my learning has taken place in the 35 odd years since I left formal education.

So, all ages, all professions and across all classes.

My children are 16 and we have talked about history and current affairs for years, all eat together and watch interesting stuff on telly. There is no excuse for it but I guess if you come from a family that isn't interested or engaged it is very easy to grow up without the curiosity or knowledge.

I remember seeing The Killing Fields when I was about 20, it had such a profound effect on me. I do see though that historical genocide closer to home does resonate more profoundly i.e,. the Holocaust will make a greater impact than Pol Pot just because of geographical constraints. Sometimes I don't think we have the mental capacity to cope with so much horror either

I learned, and my dds are in the process of learning about the holocaust through the obligatory RE lessons which I resented up until reading this thread. Makes me feel quite grateful for them now.

Trigger warning *

I heard an interview on the radio with a woman from Rwanda. They came to her village and shot the men and older boys, her father, husband, sons, brother, all of them dead. They put a noose around her baby’s neck and made her pull it herself until her baby was dead. They then gang-raped her and left her HIV positive. This was all part of a government-backed effort to destroy the Tutsis. Where mass-rape and deliberate infection of women with HIV were carried out as acts of war. And this all happened during our lifetime. The Nazis were evil, but I don’t think they were by any means an exceptional evil.

I’ve been to the killing fields of Cambodia. I’ve seen room after room of photos of people killed in Tuol Sleng Prison. I’ve seen the pits where bodies were thrown in. The ground still crunches with bone.

Even listening to the horrors of the death camps in North Korea where 3 generations of families are imprisoned for one persons supposed wrong-doing.

Human beings are unfortunately capable of doing terrible, terrible things.

My grandfather fought in Burma during WWII. My parents were born in the aftermath of the war, so I was affected by their stories. But my kids less so. They are more interested in the Middle East, the twin towers, ISIS. The war it terror. Of course all history is important, but it’s impossible to know everything.

TopBitchoftheWitches The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas is a terrible book for learning about the Holocaust! It's full of factual inaccuracies (some good critiques available online). I've written an entire essay on the issues with the book and the problems it causes in Holocaust teaching. I'm a History teacher and, like a PP, my school is a Beacon School for Holocaust education. This book causes more misconceptions and misunderstandings for pupils than it imparts information. The only use we have found for it is for pupils to study it in English lessons (after spending 6 weeks learning about the Holocaust in History lessons) and critique it based on it's (in)accuracy.

I don’t think it’s impossible for British people to know what happened to 6 million European Jews 80 years ago. I can’t see it’s that big an ask. I think one of the reasons we remember is that the nazis were not an exceptional evil - the nazis were ‘people like us’ with democratically elected leaders but within ten years they had taken all the apparatus of the state to perfom murder on a - yes- unprecedented scale.
The resentment some have at the idea we remember is fascinating in itself.

I first started learning about it when we had two German exchange Scouts stay with us when I was about 12 and one of them (a nasty sort) said in German to the other one that my mum looks like a Jew. A childhood friend was there and understood him because his parents were German. So he said to my dad 'Mr W, that boy just said some very rude about your wife'. The next day the Scout leader came over and said they were transferring this boy to another family. Of course, I was intrigued why looking like a Jew (and by extension myself and one of my brothers - we have the same dark features) was considered to be a bad thing. Turns out I am actually black Irish with about 8% East European blood but not necessarily Jewish. There has been a concerted effort for some time to define being European as blonde/blue eyed only.

maybe missing the point of the thread but I’d never tell a hairdresser (or a barber in my case) that I was going to visit Auschwitz. At most I’d just have said I was going to Germany sight seeing. I cant imagine having that kind of conversation with a stranger who’s cutting my hair.

I just got my hair cut by a turkish stylist whilst on holiday in Kemer. No chit chat=fab 😂

Q. ‘How do you want your hair-cut?’
A. ‘In silence’

I knew about the holocaust and to a lesser extent some of the other awful events mentioned on this thread but there are a lot of things I’m reading that I had no idea about. My goodness I’ve been really stressed out about things going on in my life but this thread has really put things into perspective. The extent of human suffering and the utter cruelty which humans are capable of inflicting on each other, on innocent babies sand children FFS, is just gut wrenching.

Alec Auschwitz is actually in Poland.

Maybe the OP knew the hairdresser really well although discussing holidays is hardly a deeply private matter, I've known mine for 15 years and we discuss absolutely everything under the sun. She's fantastic and one of the most well informed people I know.

At most I’d just have said I was going to Germany sight seeing
Auschwitz is 375 km from the German border.

Indeed it is - my apologies. I was actually in Germany just the other week sightseeing and so that was on my mind. I also have a degree in Politics and Modern History so I should have know better!

Nonetheless, and without wishing to sound flippant, I remain of the view that a hairdressing salon is not somewhere where I'd automatically want to engage in conversations of this type. I also have some sympathy with the hairdresser - none of us can know everything about everything.

Agreed. I also wouldn’t have said it’s a sightseeing holiday. It might be a deeply moving personal pilgrimage for many, so to boil it down to a summer holiday sightseeing tour somewhat lessens exactly what it is.

Yes sightseeing is a pretty awful term to use.

It's an awful term to use, but accurate in an horrifying and awkward way.

I didn't go to make a personal pilgrimage or personal journey. I went because I felt it was a place of historical significance (A bit like when i went to Ypres. I didn't go because of personal journeys or connection to the battlefields or ww1. I went because of historical significance. Not comparing the events by the way before someone jumps in with some ridiculoisn accusation.).

In some respects it is sight seeing, but it feels all kinds of wrong to call it that. I found the whole place uncomfortably awkward and like there was no appropriate feeling or thought to have there. Nothing seemed right. I'm glad I visited but wouldn't go back. I think if I've ever spoken about it I've said 'I visited' or 'when I went to.

BlackLambAndGreyFalcon, have you read Rebecca West? Are you from the Balkans or just take particular interest in it?

Wow, I'm 23 btw and that is spectacularly thick.

And we did the holocaust pretty much every year in secondary...