to be horrified that people are forgetting the Holocaust?

[FleurDelacoeur]

www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/study-shows-americans-are-forgetting-about-holocaust-n865396

OK, so it's an American study but 11% of all adults and 20% of millenials in the US haven't heard of the holocaust, or aren't sure whether they've heard of it or not.

Given that this is one of the most important events of the 20th century isn't this simply appalling? How can people NOT know??

I'm not aware of the curriculum in the rest of the UK but I know my secondary age kids in Scotland have learned about the Holocaust as part of a WW2 topic, and it was touched on in RE too when they learned about Judaism.

And quite frankly if it wasn't in the curriculum I'd be making sure they knew about it as it's such an important event which should never be forgotten.

Er stop blaming schools!!!

This so pisses me off. Ffs parents need to teach their kids about these things and instilled values

There are many genocides of equal and greater magnitude around the world that have occurred in the last century

Which ones? The Wikipedia page linked to upthread has the Holocaust as the top. Does it need amending?

You only have to read the average MN thread to see people are so narrow minded and obsessed about school gates and MIL's these days, when 75 years ago people were being gassed to death just for being Jewish. There really are more things to think about.

There is an age limit on the holocaust area of that imperial war museum. But my god when you have been on that floor you never forget it.

My image is of 2 sisters smiling aged 4/5 they were taken outside their garden and shot dead. I will never forget their faces so full of cheeky hope.

DS and I went to the exhibition at the IWM.

Brings it home when you see the train carriage and the clothing and stuff with your own eyes.

Do you think they deliberately made the exhibition feel claustrophobic? It wasn't particularly crowded but I felt really hemmed in and panicky.

Maybe it's because people like were brought up listening to our parents and grandparents who lived through the war. I can't say I knew a whole lot about the Spanish civil war, Korea or Vietnam until I really started to learn history.

Slavery wasn’t genocide?!?! Wtf!!!!!
“when you talk about genocide it STARTS with the holocaust”?!?! Again Wtf?!?! The holocaust was horrific. Fact. But it IS taught in schools. Slavery (thank god) is taught in schools. What needs to be taught in schools is other genocides and the devastation caused by colonialism....which also included horrific genocides, eg the indigenous people of America !

A disaster that happened over a century ago, what makes it so special?

Erm.

Some people get the hump about talking about the holocaust. I don't know why

What shocked me at the Imperial War Museum was not the Holocaust exhibition- that was well trodden territory - but,fuck me, the 4th (?) floor, age restricted (18+) on the other 20th century genocides.

The African slave trade was an abomination. It was not driven by the desire to eradicate an entire group of people however, a key difference, although of course it doesn't excuse it.
I'd also like to know more about the many genocides of equal or greater magnitude as well...

At least 6 million Jewish people, plus the trade unionists, Jehovah witness believers, Black people, the communists, the Roma population of many invaded countries, gay people, disabled people, mentally disabled, Poles and Russians. It won’t be forgotten.

Not that it's a competition I know but I'd love to hear about which genocides of equal or greater importance have taken place in the last century .

Gassed for being Jewish
Or Roma
Or gay
Or disabled.
Unfortunately, war crimes, genocides and massacres are hard to teach about well and effectively, due to the horrific details. Necessary though.MAUS is one interpretation I remember.
It diesn’t surprise me that people are forgetting, it is what happens.

There were other people, Polish, disabled, gay and gypsies killed along with Jewish people by the Nazis. The idea of killing disabled people originated in America, they should be educated in this to avoid a repeat occurrence.

I have a 15 year old - he has chosen to do history and is covering the Atlantic Slave Trade, WW2 and stuff about Victorian Britain I think. DD who is 12 hasn't studied WW2 at all, but knows who Anne Frank is and what happened to her. When asked to research a "famous Scottish person" for a project last year she did Jane Haining, who died in Auschwitz after being arrested for helping Jews.

To me it's one of these common knowledge things which everyone should know.

Was the exhibition 18+?

I took DS in when he was about 13 and no one stopped us.

I work in a primary school, our year six children have studied Goodnight Mr Tom, The Diary of Anne Frank and visited the Holocaust Museum. They heard a survivor talk while there and I've never seen them listening to something so carefully.

Stalin and Mao killed millions, just not the systematic targeting and the impersonal, industrial extinction that turned the dead into profits for the state and individuals. Cambodia, Rwanda, the mess that was the break up of Yugoslavia.

Fleur if he hasn't already watched it World War 2 in Colour on Netflix is very, very good, really informative. There are some others on there too which give a good insight into the rise of nazism.

Queen - the Genocide Exhibition was 18+, the Holocaust Exhibition 13+. IIRC

@LimonViola we must be similar ages as my school years match yours and I certainly studied the Holocaust at school in primary and secondary. It was then included in my History GCSE (unit on rise of Nazis inc Anti-Semitism & start of Holocaust but didn't focus on it) and my A- Level (units on Nazi rule, British Interwar Foreign Policy & c19th-c20th Germany) and was talked about and commemorated in school life; we had a visit from a survivor, history dept sent visotors on an education scheme to Auschwitz, we had memorials and silences. I remember A Candle in the Dark being on ks2 SAT paper- we were clearly expected to at least vaguely be aware of the context of the story (kindertransport and night of the broken glass). I have also read around the subject from a young age due to interest.

However, school focuses and curriculums vary so can appreciate you may have had a very different experience. But it certainly was taught.

In my 50s and only learned of the Armenian wipe out about 20 years. Not in our history books in lreland. Totally shocked.
But we did learn about the holocast and WW2 in great detail as did my dc. Savage things happened in Bosnia Rwanda ..you could keep going. Its a very cruel world and look at Syriaonly today. We will never learn.

TheQueen

Totally agree with you the lighting got more dim and as you were stepping down into worse and worse it felt like descending into hell

Its important to me that my children know about this subject. Their great-grandfather was POW on the long march in Poland.

My youngest learnt about WWII and Anne Frank in Yr 6. We visited last year.

Oldest YR 10 has just been to Berlin and visited Sachsenhausen and the Jewish museum.

We've also done quite a lot of the Normandy museums and visited Reims where they signed the surrender.

When in France this summer, we will visit Le Struthof concentration camp. Anywhere we go in Europe we find something related to the subject.