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.

If they are going to focus on a few topics, I'm not sure there's a massive rationale for WW2 being one of them over something like the creation of the British Empire/ the Industrial Revolution/ rise of the US, unless the main focus of WW2 is on the geopolitics before and after

World War 2 shaped the world we live in now. It led to the EU to try and stop Europe becoming conflict ridden again. It led to Human Rights legislation as a reaction to the complete subjugation of the individual to the state under Nazism. There are other countries in the world, who do not have this history, who have more of a communal sense of society, rather than the emphasis on the individual we have. And it of course shows just how near we always are to dehumanising our fellow citizens. It is an important period to study.

Ok then…

I'm talking about communication from the DfE. We had to change much in the Gove era, for example. However, he's gone now, so we're changing stuff back.
Of course Scotland is always different to England, etc

Gosh, I did history gcse in the 90’s and found it really interesting and entertaining. I think it’s all down to the teacher for the most part.

I'd also suggest Sheikh Zayed in the UAE, Sheikh Khalifa in Qatar (if you're talking about citizens, not residents). Also small populations with very high oil & gas wealth. Sultan Qaboos in Oman as well (although larger population and less oil & gas wealth).

It does come with it not being a good thing if you want to go against the general view, or criticize said benign dictator, but there are examples of benign dictatorships where the citizens have benefited from the structure (and I'd raise Bahrain and Kuwait as examples where it hasn't worked (with Kuwait interestingly being the most democratic!)).

I can't think of a large country, or a country where there aren't enough natural resources to go around all the citizens whilst still keeping the benign dictator in the lap of luxury, where it's worked. Human nature sadly.

I find your post quite ironic OP since the majority of Judeophobia now comes from the far-left and Islamists and German young people are some of the most educated on the holocaust and in defence of Jewish people.

But yes, it is very worrying that there is so much ignorance about the holocaust and history does look like it is repeating itself at times.

Exactly - all the more important that it’s taught in British schools.

It IS “bad guys” - the British WERE the bad guys

Yes, you’re probably right. Having a passionate, engaging teacher often makes all the difference. Hence the podcast being such a success.

You’re only speaking from the very limited experience of your children in their schools.

Some schools are better than others - you’re absolutely misinformed.

Yes. Can you confidently name details, dates and places of international conflicts that happened 200 years ago. Separate question not related to other examples I gave in my post.

I don't know much about the Boer War or the Crimean.

Very few people are still around who remember WW2, of course at some point it will pass out of living memory and people will learn about it in history lessons at school instead.

Exactly, I sympathise. Not everybody's mental health is in a place to know every single detail. I also don't think they need to. Having an understanding of the atrocities is more than enough imo. Why is there a need to name the concentration camps? Simply knowing they were there is enough. Learning about history is vital of course, we know there was horrific and unthinkable torture, gas chambers; I honestly feel sick just thinking about it. It is like reading about horrific stories in the news; I don't want to know every detail, but I more than understand the severity.

I am close to 40, and remember enough; I tuned out the most horrific details because they were too much; we can't change the past, only honour the dead, and take from it what we need to to learn going forward.

Yes, this. It is still taught. My son has a keen interest in history, and absorbs every detail, and recites it all when he gets home. He has a stronger constitution than I do.

This thread is rather misleading. The actual research isn't only about young people, or about it being within the borders of Germany.
The survey was for all ages, and asked to name any concentration camps, death camps, killing sites, transit camps or ghettoes established by the Nazis during the second world war.

26% of those surveyed in the UK said they did not know any of their names.The proportion was 33% among those aged 18-29 in the UK. So only a 7% difference.

Also: "When asked if they had encountered Holocaust denial or distortion while on social media, 23% of those surveyed in the UK said “yes”." I suspect the 26% might not even recognise it.

So 26% of people are either stupid or don't want to cooperate with the research. 74% do. You can't only blame formal education, people learn from TV etc. It's not great, but as the article doesn't mention any baseline research, there is no evidence of whether this is a decline, increase, or no change.

Some students are amazing, so interested and engaged, very ready to learn. I do give warning about the content and for some aspects there is an opportunity for non participation. However, on the whole they find it very interesting, albeit shocking.
I like the sound of your son!

I wonder how many know that the “2nd world war” stretched beyond Europe? It was a long long time ago and there are few left who lived through it as adults now, so of course people forget. We have our own horror stories now.

Funnily enough, my year 9 said over the weekend that they’re studying the Holocaust, and that their history teacher said it’s the only part of history they’re legally obliged to teach. Not looked this up yet, but thought it interesting.

Luckily our local comp has a very strong history department including a teacher with a MA is WW1. He’s already lead my year 9 on an outstanding war graves trip to France.

We’ll be planning a family trip to the IWM soon.

Totally depends on the dictatorship - I visited both Singapore and Dubai in the last 20 years and in both these dictatorships people are more than happy, the natives are looked after, the foreigners are allowed to come, work, pay taxes but are never afforded any native rights. Education, medical care are excellent as are levels of satisfaction. And when people told me Singapore and Dubai are dictatorships (they are, secret police, people who dissent disappear, prison sentences for criticising those in power, no LGBTQ+ rights at all) I ask those critics to compare these two dictatorships with the neighbouring democratic disasters - child prostitution or legalised marriages for 9 y.o.girls, wretched poverty and human lives which are so cheap, it costs very little to kill a person, people drinking from puddles and the caste system - but hey, some of them are 'world's largest democracies'.

At the end of the day, the 2nd World War ended over 80 years ago at this point. At some point, past events stop being something relatable and just become history.

I'm in my early 40s. I had grandparents who were children in the war and remember having chats with great grandparents who fought in the war. My daughter on the other hand is nearly 18. The only relative she has who was alive then was her great Grandad, and he was a young kid then and has had dementia for the last ten years, so its not something they've ever talked about.

Actually knowing people who remember those periods in time provides a connection to them, and as that connection is lost then young people will naturally learn less about that events.

Add to that how much the world has changed over the past 80 years, and it must feel to kids that they have absolutely nothing in common with the people who lived through those times. Talking to my daughter and her friends, they're much more knowledgeable about the events going on around the world now than I was at that age. I hear quite nuanced conversations on the Israel Gaza situation, the USA falling apart, and of course the thing that really really scares them, climate change. They're going to have to live though that in a way we never will.

Should we all remember the 2nd World War and the lessons learnt from the rise of the Nazis and their atrocities? Of course we should. But should we blame our kids for not having the same level of knowledge that we do about it? No, just as our parents knew more than us, and their parents knew more than them.

Yes I mean not much is said about the fact that at least 250,000 people died in POW camps in Japan in the second world war. The brutality( I won't go into details because it is beyond belief) inflicted on those people is barely mentioned. How many people know about it?

In the 80’s I nursed a man on the eye ward.
His eyesight had been badly affected during his time in a Japanese pow camp.
He had no toe nails either as they’d all been pulled out by the Japanese.

https://www.claimscon.org/country-survey/

This is a link to the actual results and survey questions. Overall and broken down by the eight countries.

The actual survey question about naming concentration camps was worded around naming any that a respondent had heard off, as opposed asking a respondent to name all of them.