Teaching WW2 to children of German ancestry?

[weegiemum]

My children (age 6, 8, 10) are 1/4 German. My dh's dad is German, they are in regular contact with their great granny who was born in 1923 and was in the Hitler Youth etc ....

Next term (Oct onwards) dd1 (10 ) has WW2 as her "topic" at school. Although I grew up not questioning the way it is taught in the UK, all of a sudden dh (talking about learning this in school with a German Dad, even though his dad was born in 1945 and has British nationality now) he found it hard to heat all about the Germans as "baddies".

We've brought our kids up talking about all sides of their identity - they had a lot of fun and also many thoughtful moments visiting some of the Normandy beaches 2 years ago. They know that their Opa (Great Grandpa who died 2 years ago) was in the Lufwaffe while my Grandpa was gunner in the RAF.

However, I am worried about it coming up in school. Should I let the school (and dd1 has a teacher I know well and trust implicitly) know our family background on this? I don't want (rather sensitive) dd1 coming home upset from what is being taught. She;s happily scottish (me), knows a good dela about Ireland (dh) but there is still the German part which we have not addressed (though we are thinking of a holiday there to introduce the kids to where their family are from) and I don't want her to get a "bad" impression of Germans from school.

Weegie, my DS3 did WW2 in P5. It was mostly about Scotland during the war and didn't even really deal with the causes, politics or anything. They learned about rationing, what it was like to be a child at that time (toys, clothes, school, that sort of thing)then they learned a bit about evacuation, blackouts, gas masks, anderson shelters all that sort of thing. There was no mention of the holocaust, POW camps or anything like that, very little mention even of Hitler, the Nazis, Churchill or anything else. I don't think that you need to worry too much about it at this stage.

I do think, though, that it would be great if you could let the teacher know and maybe get your FIL to go into school to talk to the kids. It's a great learning experience for them.

My DS1 did history at secondary school and they go into much more depth then. The Standard Grade, Higher and Advanced Higher curriculum is obsessed with the World Wars and the Interbellum period, but it is reasonably balanced. They look at the causes of both wars, the situation in Germany that allowed Hitler to rise to power and the role that the Allied powers played in that (reparations etc.)They also look at the political situation in Europe before WW1 and how that caused WW1 and the link between the 2 wars. Then they look at the aftermath and how the wars have effectively shaped Europe today. Things like the holocaust only play a very small part in school history and it's balanced by looking at the bad things that happened on all sides. I don't really remember any blame being apportioned as such. It's not really a case of allies good, axis bad any more, like it was still when I was at school.

weegie - I think that at the ages your DCs are, it will mainy be thing slike family life, rationing (which as far as I know happened in other parts of the UK too) and maybe touch briefly on the military side of things.

Also, and my 2 are in English schools, they were enver told that Germans were "bad", and that your frontline German soldier, sailor or pilot was doing his job.

I complained to Ds1's head teacher when he was in yr 6, and came home and told me "mum, we're doing WW2 at school, England and france stood alone fighting the Nazis".
Needless to say i felt obliged to point out the inaccuracies in what was being taught!

I do not have DC's at English schools. Do they only teach European history in a WW2 component or do they cover the Pacific as well? I know many British people who are aged 20 to 35 who seem to have no idea that the Japanese were involved as was Australia (and other countries).

Riven - my exerience of history os far in English schools is that they only teach "english" history. They touched briefly on Mary Queen of scots when DS2 was in year 5, but told him "Mary Queen of Scots was also known as Bloody Mary" er, no they are 2 different people.

Serenity, in Scotland the War in the Pacific is only really touched on at more advanced stages of secondary education and even then, it isn't really a focus just a sort of addenda. It's certainly not covered in Primary at all. And yes, it is mostly very Euro-centric. MY DS1 did history almost the whole way through school and has a close friend who took history all the way through school and is now in his 3rd year of a history degree and I can't remember them doing anything that wasn't Europe based. A very great deal of it was UK based ( housing reforms, suffragettes, Industrial Revolution etc.) with some Spanish Civil War/Russian Revolution stuff thrown in as a lead up to and scene setting for the WW studies.

When they did Edward Longshanks, they told Ds1 that " Edward's Army conquered the Scots at Stirling Bridge and captured William Wallace, the scots terrorist"

Any Scot who was told that would rightly be outraged. As DH was.

OP, please, please go in and talk to school. I am sure they will be only too pleased to invite you/Dh in to talk to the children. How fantastic to have history expanded in this way.

My DS did this topic last term. His fantastic TA grew up in East Germany and her parents still live there. She was able to share with the children WWII from the perspective of the ordinary German citizen - this will have meant that the children will certainly not have finished the topic seeing the Germans as 'baddies'. In fact, it was during the World Cup this year. The rivalry was fairly fun and light hearted during the actual England v Germany match (TAs daughter is in class and supported Germany throughout). After England lost, guess what? The whole class decided to support Germany! And this is in a slightly more working class area where xenophobia would sometimes be more apparent.

Oh, and as you're scottish, presumably the whole football thing would have been less of an issue? I'm not sure all that many scots will have supported England?

My family is of German heritage and my older DS did get called "Nazi" which started as soon as they talked about WW2. Luckily, he is very robust and able to counter this. When my younger DS was in the same class, I told him not to mention about the German bit of our heritage as I did not want him subject to the same level of "teasing" as he is not such a robust character.

I think the OP is right to be concerned. It is not the school teaching incorrectly, it is what the other pupils hear at home and from the general view of Germans from the general population here.

I have no suggestion how to counter this if the OPs children are subjected to this name-calling, but it is good to be forewarned and forearmed and to think of counter arguments at home before the topic starts.

Pixie - I must apologise, I scooted off to bed after my post. I didn't mean you didn't know your stuff (although I did word it very badly indeed and it did read like that).

But I was highlighting the point that as you say that is how it is taught in school, which although it appears factual, it isn't quite and it's the little details that offense is taken about or that (if you are going to be bullied about) bullies will pick up on and can make a child miserable even though it's not necessarily true but is deemed as true because the teacher said so.

(Blimey! It's daytime, I'm not tired (well not as tired as I will be by evening) and that's still a pigs ear of a sentence. Hope you get what I'm trying to say.

Agree with mummytime- in schools I've come across, the term Nazi is used rather than German.
And they are at pains to point out that the war was between governments- it wasn't the fault of the German people.
I go into schools talking about my father's wartime experiences in the RAF, and have come across other people doing the same- some had parents who were evacuated, some were fighting for other countries.
At year 6 level, it's quite simplistic and deals a lot with the social aspects of war rather than the politics.
Both my dcs were aware of it being a "world" war, rather than just European.

By going into school and talking to the head OP, they can make it clear to the pupils the difference between Nazis and Germans.

When my DC study WW2 I will make sure that they are aware that it was not just in Europe, as my granfather was captured in Singapore and held in a Japanese prison camp for 2.5 years, and DH's grandfather was killed in Burma.

When I studied History in secondary school (about 20 years ago) we weren't taught that the Germans were the "baddies", we looked at the politics of the time, how Hitler used the fact that the economy was in crisis and Germany was in a mess after WW1 to get into power. So I very much doubt that 20 years later they will be teaching that all Germans are evil!

My DC are 1/4 German too, but their grandmother was Jewish so not really the same concerns.I do object to the fact that nothing about the causes of WW2 were taught and making it sound as if 'both sides were baddies because they both dropped bombs'.
I don't think the allied forces invaded Poland or murdered tens of thousands of Jews

Hi again, weegie, gosh, you got lots of responses and v varied replies, so I am not sure how much I can usefully add...

Suffice to say, I have pondered the exact same problem. My boys are a bit younger than your kids, but the time will come. I suppose I have a much bigger problem with discussing/explaining (how can anyone explain?) the Holocaust/mass destruction of unwanted people/concentration camps. I feel very reassured by some of the posters that primary school seems to focus more on the social impact that war has on everybody.

My boys know that there were 2 WWs, both initiated by German actions and that lots and lots of people died on both sides, soldiers and civilians. We have also spoken about that Germany was run by some very bad people - I have not introduced the word 'Nazi' simply because it is so easy to use for namecalling without actually knowing what it means exactly (and I am already dealing with explaining why 'mongol' and 'spaz' are really really not acceptable on the playground or anywhere else ). The boys seems to understand the concept of 'war' scarily well (some countries fell out and started fighting) and also understand that the Allies were trying to stop Germany from continuing to do some Very Bad Things.

My father comes from a very poor Romanian background (Bukowina Deutsche) and had to flee his home in 1940; he and his family spent several years on the run/in refugee camps etc. My mum's family background is much more well off/bourgois: family owned brick-making factory was bombed, family lost everything, (rather grand) house was constripted first by the French, then by the Russions (apparently the Russians were much better behaved ).
I am just describing this as I absolutely loved hearing my 4 grandparents talk about their lives. It did make things a lot more real. The downside was that I went through a rather intense fear of war, literally being unable to sleep because I was afraid a bomb might come through the roof at night.
I your FIL is prepared and able to speak to the schoolkids IMO that would be a phantastic opportunity for them. Sadly that generation of true witnesses will not be with us forever...

I am currently reading Andrew Marr's 'History of Moderns Britain' and am totally shocked at how much I am learning ; would highly recommend it (sorry, sl off subject).

There have of course been lots and lots of cruel, extremist governments in lots of countries that prosecuted certain groups (and Jews always seem to be among them), but the Nazis took it to new and never before seen extremes - I have no idea how explain that. And maybe it does not need to be explained, simply taught as a historical fact and as a stark warning what humankind is capable of.