To be surprised and a bit shocked

[Thomasina79]

That a high percentage of young people cannot name the concentration camps of the Second World War in Germany and some are not even aware of the atrocities committed.

in the light of the far right extremism in Europe rising up, financial instability, anti semitism/anti Muslim are we nit in danger of history repeating itself. People have poor memories.. yes sadly there have been many many wars since, some all too recently. The situation in the world is all so worrying and I fear for my grandchildren and adult children.

Same! But my maternal grandfather fought in WW2 and the Holocaust was a common topic of conversation in our family.

To me naming camos is pointless - learning by rote of easily looked up facts

They need to be taught about why - the hate , the othering , the natural obedience to power

No problem. We have used the HET lessons, a little modified, for some years.

I'm not hugely surprised that many people can't reel off a list of camps. I can't do that and I did a German degree...I can probably off the top of my head name about 5-6. I'd be surprised if a high number had no idea what the holocaust was or what happened in the camps. Apart from anything else it is relatively frequently a topic in movies and TV etc. But also history learning at school is to be far more focused on the experiences and the people and the politics, than on reeling off lists of things. DD is doing WW2 now in y9 and they are doing it in a reasonable amount of depth, with homework involving plenty of research etc.

Yes, that's what they learn. It doesn't start in 1942, the seeds were sown earlier.

Should this discussion not recognise that the Germans were inspired by the Brits? The number of Lord Kitchener posters and kitchen tat I've seen sold and in people's houses, but he was responsible for the concentration camps in the Boer war. Nobody talks about this. It's weird.

We need to model bravery, strength of character, curiosity, open mindedness, kindness, generosity, empathy and compassion without prejudice or judgement to our children. So that we grow brave and compassionate children into useful members of society. Doing this will benefit the human race far more than teaching them about the holocaust, taking them to visit concentration camps or getting them to learn a list of the names of the camps. None of those latter things will ensure a child doesn't develop a Nazi mindset.

KS3 History curriculum is absolutely massive and with lots of choices. Here's an example of one section :
examples (non-statutory)  women’s suffrage  the First World War and the Peace Settlement  the inter-war years: the Great Depression and the rise of dictators  the Second World War and the wartime leadership of Winston Churchill  the creation of the Welfare State  Indian independence and end of Empire  social, cultural and technological change in post-war British society  Britain’s place in the world since 1945.

Holocaust should be covered in yr. 9 and every year we have Holocaust memorial day. Might not be covered in great depth, according to the teaching. There simply isn't time.

Our schools in SE Wales definitely teach about the Halocaust. They take Years 9/10 to Krakow and visit Auschwitz every couple of years .

Very good points, although I think it should be done in tandem with teaching the history. They don't learn lists of camps, though.

We also have to bear in mind that when the majority of us were born, it was only 30-40 years after WWII. We were learning about the recent past and our grandparents had lived it. For the current generation it’s like us learning about the victorians. What happened in WWII was horror on such a huge scale that you’d hope we were still learning from it, but awful things were done in the Boer war, for example, which is about the same timeframe as then for our generation. Can you name any of the concentration camps from that? Did you even know there WERE concentration camps then? Or that there were war crimes trials after it?

I learnt nothing about the Holocaust at school beyond a vague understanding of what happened so accusing "young people" of being ignorant is rather short sighted.

DC, on the other hand, had "Holocaust Memorial Day" marked at school with workshops etc and covered a lot. DD went on a school trip to Auschwitz as part of her REP A level.

I've learnt far more from things like Who Do You Think You Are then I ever did at school.

I finished school at 18 in 1974. I went through the whole of my formal education without a single lesson about WWII but I was very aware of it. My parents and grandparents and their friends talked about it frequently and it was definitely a point of reference in my life. There were any number of films and books. The whole awful time was just there and it was absorbed by us youngsters by osmosis. Obviously, that happens less and less these days, as that generation die off, but I still find it hard to believe these kids don't have any awareness of the facts. Being able to recite the names of the camps isn't important but a knowledge that they existed and what happened in them is, in order to understand that Europe (using the term geographically), isn't immune to such atrocities if the wrong person is given adulation and then power and that it's something they will have a role in preventing..

How much do you know about ins and outs of conflicts that happened 200 years ago? Can you recall any specific details of genocide in Africa? Any details of Xinhai Revolution? Can you name any gulags? Do you know how many people perished as a result of Stalin's repression (clue - many many more than as a result of Holocaust). I'm betting not and some people may find it equally shocking.
We don't know/remember everything. It's normal. And I am saying it as someone who had relatives in a concentration camp.

There really isn't time but ideally it would be great if kids could become at least a little familiar with the Frankfurt school and then through to Foucault.

It is my sincere belief that many (not all) but many of those who waved the rainbow flags over the past couple of years would have been just as easily persuaded to wave a swastika flag if they found themselves in different times. The glee with which they would destroy anyone who questioned it. I grew up wondering how anyone could have sided with the Nazis, indeed - how could any of us be sure we wouldn't, when so many did. And along came the misogyny and homophobia of the latter rainbow movement with all its threats and violence, and everyone fell into line. This was their test. And they failed. It's clear to me that bit of basic education on this isn't going to make the blindest bit of difference. Humans are the same animal and it will happen again, but we will all be convinced we're on the right side of history and this time the cause is different and worthy.

A dictator who wanted the best for the citizens of their country could pump money into what mattered
healthcare
education
sanitation.
There wouldn’t be endless debate whilst nothing improved.

Which country has a dictator that has done this?

I read a 1,000+ page book on the Holocaust (Martin Gilbert, highly recommended) and still can only name two camps. I don't retain proper nouns well, but I retained the parts that actually matter - what happened.

This, exactly. That is an extraordinary book.

https://www.thejc.com/news/americans-nazi-death-camp-holocaust-survey-r28yh1i1

This is a survey amongst nations who fought in WW2

I think the rise in anti-semitism amongst conspiracy theorists in worrying, especially seeing how so many 'normal' people are getting sucked into these online now. 'Hitler cared for people' is a popular one I have noticed popping up in amongst people I know in RL who read conspiracy stuff online. If you hear someone say ' Hitler cared for his people/ wasn't such a bad man/ did some good things' they have absolutely absorbed this from online conspiracy theories.

There is a difference too between the concentration camps and the death camps like Sobibor, Chelmo, Treblinka. When I teach it I emphasise the very deliberate and planned nature of it. Architects and engineers, scientists and accountants sat down and worked it out. It wasn't haphazard or sporadic. The work by Hannah Arendt on the Banality of Evil after Eichmanns trial is v important. I talk with the students about how the Holocaust was carried out for the most part by ordinary people, not psychotic monsters and that is what makes it so dangerous.

Sick of hearing the word far right.
Theres no such thing.
Does that make you a far left extremist? I’m more worried about the Far Left !!

The other issue is that however benign they start off they always seem to end up going crazy with power although I'm hardly awake and can't name any at the moment.

I was at secondary school in the 70’s and we weren’t taught about WW1 or WW2 in our History course. For some unfathomable reason we did topics like the American civil war for modern history.

I learnt some bits through watching 60’s/70’s war films on TV but they were made to entertain rather than educate. I’ve since started to read a lot more fiction set in WW1 and WW2 as it’s interesting to me, especially the roles that women played.

The thing that saddens me most is that my (older) parents were in the RAF and WAAF during WW2 but rarely talked about their experiences. Mum was a wireless operator on the air bases and occasionally if I asked her what the morse code for (X) was, she rattled it off without thinking. I know my dad was an engineer as he was an electrical engineer when I was growing up, but I don’t know what his actual wartime job involved.

I wouldn’t be able to name all of them although I have been (in person) to the Auschwitz/Birkenau complex, Gross-Rosen and Majdanek.

I have also learned at school about Soviet gulags (read the Gulag Archipelago at school) and Ukrainian Holodomor.

I accessed it just fine and the first part reads:

A third of young adults in the UK are unable to name Auschwitz or any of the other concentration camps and ghettoes where the crimes of the Holocaustwere committed, according to a study. Other growing gaps in knowledge – especially among those aged 18-29 – were also identified, as part of a major international survey in countries including the US and UK.

The findings have been released before the International Day of Commemoration in memory of the victims of the Holocaust and the 80th anniversary of Auschwitz’s liberation on Monday. It comes amid fears of a resurgent far right and alarm over rising antisemitism.
More than a quarter of people surveyed in the UK were unable to name a single camp or ghetto established by the Nazis during the second world war.
King Charles will travel to Auschwitz on Monday to mark the liberation, joining survivors and other dignitaries as well as meeting Poland’s president, Andrzej Duda. It comes as the prime minister pledged to make Holocaust education in the UK “a truly national endeavour”, saying his government would “ensure all schools teach it”.