High School Holocaust Education
May 7, 2008 - 10:57 am PDT
This is what makes me frustrated with Holocaust history education in grade school…
First, he does not mention the homosexuals, mentally and physically disabled, gypsies and other people who were just plain different that were every bit victims of the holocaust as Jews were. The Holocaust wasn’t just an attempt to wipe out the Jewish people.
Second, Hitler wasn’t elected chancellor of Germany, he was appointed by the president. From what I remember the Nazi party wasn’t even the most popular party in the Reichstag, and the Nazis used a lot of bullying to gain their power during election times.
Third, it was easy for Hitler and the Nazis to use Jews as a scapegoat. Anti-semitism wasn’t just a Nazi thing, it was a problem all over the world even in the US. Throughout history in Europe Jews had often been trodden on and treated like less than their Christian neighbors. People didn’t have to avoid telling Nazis they were Jewish, it would have been well known in the communities who was Jewish and who wasn’t.
Fourth, people did rise up and object to Kristallnacht, and many left Germany after that. It’s so naive and stupid to say it’s just that easy to have stood up, and why didn’t they just stand up to the rest of the country who were very willing to let Jews be a scapegoat for their problems.
Fifth, Jews weren’t just thrown into “cattle cars” and executed from the start. They were first singled out with the star badges, then they were moved to ghettos - separated areas of certain cities - then they were moved to working camps, then things escalated to the several execution camps that you learn about in school.
You can’t impose your modern views on the people of the past. You can’t impose your sense of right to property, liberty, and all those rights we Americans claim to have. You can’t ignore the context of Germany before World War II, and you can’t ignore the mentality of the various groups of people involved in any aspect of the Holocaust.
I am so irritated with the stuff that American high school teachers tell their students about the Holocaust. I don’t care if this guy was a high school teacher or not; what he is teaching is what many people are taught. So much of American grade school history is rooted in myth, and not in the actual facts of historical events. Christopher Columbus was not the great discoverer of our country, and he wasn’t the wonderful man he’s played out to be in many history books. We as a country take it too much for granted that the people we think should know better are telling us the facts, and don’t take enough upon ourselves to learn what’s really there.
Categorized: Education
Natalie
May 7th, 2008 @ 11:18 am PDTYou make lots of good points. I can’t watch the video because I’m at work but I will later, you piqued my curiosity.
PS: I like the avatar
.
Cade
May 7th, 2008 @ 11:48 am PDTwelcome to the state modern education….
Kri
May 7th, 2008 @ 11:49 am PDTOhh…the comment preview has an avatar…interesting.
Cade
May 7th, 2008 @ 12:28 pm PDTdrags the “of” that ran off from his previous back….
Jason Evans
May 7th, 2008 @ 5:21 pm PDTI guess I was lucky to grow up in a small town and had history teachers who where actually interested in history, not propaganda. It’s a shame though. So much of history is much uglier than people want to remember it and it’s important that we know that so we can avoid making the mistakes of the past and not simply wear rose colored glasses when we think about “the good old days”.
Kri
May 9th, 2008 @ 6:34 pm PDTYeah Jason, I have a feeling your education was the exception rather than the rule.
jon
June 3rd, 2008 @ 3:27 am PDTi was just curious… is there any particular reason my last post was not published?
Jon
jon
June 3rd, 2008 @ 4:22 am PDTHi Kristin,
As I mentioned in the last post - I came across your website after
having listened to one of your audio readings - which I quite enjoyed.
I was a little dismayed in reading your article criticising the high school
teacher in reference to his talking to students about the holocaust.
In fact, just to set the facts straight; Hitler’s Nazi party was in fact the
most popular party not simply in one election but in 2 consecutive elections
in Germany prior to 1933. In the elections of March 1933 the Nazi party received
about 43 percent of the vote in Germany.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Germanelection%2C1933
Secondly, the word “Holocaust” is used by both Jews and Christians and usually
refers in particular to the genocide of the Jewish people in particular -in Europe.
There are 2 reasons for this:
1) THe targeting of Jews by the Nazis in Europe and by Hitler himself - was unique
in that Hitler had consciously aimed for the total destruction of Jewish people. This
does not negate the fact that homosexuals and poles or political dissidents were also
murdered by the Nazis. It does however recognize the fact that 2000 years of bigotry
against the Jews in Europe ended up with a leader like hitler who held Jewish people
in contempt beyond every other group of people on earth.
2) The word Holocaust itself has biblican allusions and literally means “burnt offering”.
It is a word that has been used in Jewish lexicon in the past (prior to WW2) but has
helped to underscore the fact that the genocide of Jewish people was not only the
largest genocide in world history (in terms of sheer numbers) but also relates to a
historical pattern of perception and actions towards Jewish people over 2 millenia.
I suggest you take a look at the video again… perhaps you may learn something from
it this time.
Jon
Kri
June 3rd, 2008 @ 6:21 am PDTYes Jon, my spam filter was being overzealous. Sorry about that.
Kri
June 3rd, 2008 @ 6:29 am PDTJon, I’ve learned quite a lot about the Holocaust in college, having taken a class titled The Holocaust, a class in pre WWI Germany, and other European history classes. While I’m not an expert on the facts, I do have a good grasp of the basics.
Regarding the popularity of the Nazi party, part of the problem with that is that they were doing a lot of bullying which potentially falsifies a lot of the votes. Also, the Nazi party wasn’t popular because the German people were for their platform, but because Hitler was a good liar and knew how to say what people wanted him to say. All this aside, there’s still the problem that a hell of a lot of people think that Hitler was voted chancellor of Germany, when that simply is not true.
I do not object to the outrage this man has about the Holocaust, but he is guilty of something that (in my experience) some high school teachers do all too often. They don’t focus on the context of a historical period, and they popularize history leaving out very important facts. Now this could just be due to neglect and not taking the time to really learn those facts, but the why it happens isn’t my point.
I learned a hell of a lot about the study of history in college that I didn’t even get a glimpse of in high school history classes, and I think that’s a real shame. It’s not about memorizing facts, but about constructing a story out of those facts based in part upon analysis and some guesswork.
Kri
June 3rd, 2008 @ 6:32 am PDTAnother example of a historical period where school teachers do not do the history justice is the stories around Christopher Columbus. Knowing what I do now I am shocked that we would celebrate a day commemorating this man. Either way, elementary school teachers (didn’t in my time at least, things may have changed) don’t really teach what happened. I know it’s a sensitive subject, and tough to teach little kids about some of the really terrible things he and other Europeans did to the natives living here before them, but I don’t think we should make stuff up as an alternative.
I mean what’s with the popular history of “Thanksgiving”?! Ugh.
Kri
June 3rd, 2008 @ 6:37 am PDTOK, here’s my last point on this for now. My main problem with this guy, in the end is that he fails to contextualize history. He is so self righteous to think that he wouldn’t get caught up in what the Germans got caught up in, and you my students damn well better not do the same thing, because it’s such an easy thing to see now that it was a bad bad terrible thing to do, and how could they do it? How could they let them do it?
I think a better lesson would have been to give some examples of things that are happening today that might make it easy for Americans, us, to let something like that happen. Guantanamo Bay. “Extraordinary Rendition”. What other things do most Americans have a hint that our government is doing that is pretty damn terrible that we’re letting happen? Ohh but that’s different of course because it’s not large scale massacre; we wouldn’t do that! Well, that’s how stuff like this starts, and the stuff that’s happening now are the things that build up and later make it easy for us to just let things happen.