Just observed a convo on facebook...

[Bugz]

and one girl asked: 'what is the holocaust' ?

Is it me - or as members of Europe, hell, members of the free modern world, should we all have a firm understanding of the world wars & their contribution to our present times?

The girl who asked it really angered me, I just find it so ignorant and unappreciative to not have any clue what the holocaust is. Thousands of soldiers & millions of jews died, many fighting against the oppression of an individual hellbent on removing free liberty from Europe and perhaps afterwards the world.

Am I overreacting to this? Are we entering a generation (albeit my own ) where the key incidents of the past are not longer as important to know or understand?

Update: when asked 'are you really joking' she says "Welllll I thought it was the big mushroom bomb thing... but wikipedia says it's about killing the jews, so I was half right? The bomb probably killed some jews"

 

[old.Tohtori]

Over-reaction due to personal teachings and history being closer to heart.

I'm guessing family in the war too?

Nothing wrong, just reacting a bit overly.

You wouldn't be mad if some medicine man in china didn't know about the holocaust.

Or perhaps the girl didn't know that the holocaust meant that event, while knowing something like "alot of people died in ww2".

 

[soze]

My memory of Secondary School History was it did not go into deatail till the GCSE part so if shes not takeing history she may not have done WW2 in great detail? We have a lot of history to cover and unless you take it as an option not much time to look at it.

 

[Raven]

Just call her a fucking stupid bitch and move on with your life.

 

[Dark Orb Choir]

i learnt about it from my grand parents and parents, my grandad fought in the war and told me loads of stuff about it


its really upto the family to teach things like this, especially if you are European, but some people say the actual figure of 6 million is a bit high, and some say its about right, personally i do not know what the correct fighure is but more than 10 and its a disgrace.....

 

[Edmond]

How old is she, as soze said, she may not have got that far in her education. If its left to her parents to tell her about it, which they obviously have'nt, then she would be none the wiser.

At least she asked the question, which is a start i suppose?

 

[Gorbachioo]

I doubt that the average kid was any smarter before. There has always been dumb people and always will be.

Being completely oblivious about history is disturbingly common though. Ive met alot of people who dont know what communism is. ;C

 

[Gorbachioo]

isome people say the actual figure of 6 million is a bit high, and some say its about right, personally i do not know what the correct fighure is but more than 10 and its a disgrace.....

9 is ok!?

 

[old.Tohtori]

I doubt that the average kid was any smarter before. There has always been dumb people and always will be.

I wouldn't say lack of information makes you dumb.

You could be the most brilliant professor of every single aspect of science, yet no interest in history and could miss this tidbit of info too.

Above someone said "she asked the question" and i find that in such situation one should answer, not judge the lack of info that individual has recieved.

 

[Gorbachioo]

I wouldn't say lack of information makes you dumb.

You could be the most brilliant professor of every single aspect of science, yet no interest in history and could miss this tidbit of info too.

Above someone said "she asked the question" and i find that in such situation one should answer, not judge the lack of info that individual has recieved.

You could, but shes not.

 

[Huntingtons]

I wouldn't say lack of information makes you dumb.

You could be the most brilliant professor of every single aspect of science, yet no interest in history and could miss this tidbit of info too.

Above someone said "she asked the question" and i find that in such situation one should answer, not judge the lack of info that individual has recieved.

i have a hard time believing you could be the most brilliant professor of every single aspect of science and then not know about 2nd world war (since alot of the teachings were discovered in that war as well)

 

[old.Tohtori]

You could, but shes not.

And you know this from one question?

You do have some psychic abilities Mr gorb.

How's that "end of our ways" preparation coming along? Week left if i remember correctly?

i have a hard time believing you could be the most brilliant professor of every single aspect of science and then not know about 2nd world war (since alot of the teachings were discovered in that war as well)

Let's not take what i said SO literally ok?

 

[Nate]

Has anyone told her yet? Otherwise, tell her she can find it in my pants!

 

[Shagrat]

It's not just you mate, gets me mad as well. Can't understand how anyone could not know what happened in the Holocaust. It's something that parents should talk to their children about, whether they are learning about it at school or not.

My children are 11 and 8 and they both sat and watched the Diary of Anne Frank on TV with me not so long ago. They absolutely bombarded me with questions because they just couldnt understand how people could do that to each other and why they would have to hide etc. I sat and explained what happened and the causes etc and was very proud of how they both reacted to it, and how they questioned what happened.

It's our, well I was going to put duty but it seems to strong a word, to make sure that the events of 14-18 and 39-45 are not forgotten, we seem as a race rather too good at repeating the same mistakes over and over for something like this to just pass into distant memory.

It's a massively pivotal moment in the history of most of the people living on this planet and needs to be treated as such.

 

[Thorwyn]

Holocaust is simply a foreign word, like pogrom or apartheit. Those words are originally not connected to any specific event, but over the time, they have been "claimed" and are now a synonym for a single event, period or situation. It´s completely irrelevant whether or not people know what holocaust "means". It´s important that they know what happened in the past. Judging people because they´re not familiar with the usual terminology is not fair in my opinion, especially when we´re talking about young people who are usually not interested in boring things like history. Flaming them for their lack of education or knowledge is not exactly helpful and - to be honest - is just a form of intellectual capitalism. As hard as it is, the only way to respond to that king of thing is... tell them, explain, teach. At least she asked!

 

[Ingafgrinn Macabre]

How's that "end of our ways" preparation coming along? Week left if i remember correctly?

I sure as hell fucking hope not. I've got tickets booked for the 27'th to New York

 

[Genedril]

Millions of non-Jews died in the Holocaust too. It really frustrates me that people either seem to gloss over or forget that.

Poles & Russians (non Jewish) & people that didn't fit into the Nazis idea of humanity (cripples, gays, Gypises) were all put through it too. I'm not making light of what happened to the Jews but they were not the only people to suffer the Holocaust.

Thorwyns right by the way - about the usage of the word. If she's not a Native English speaker she may not immediately associate that word with that part of history....

No matter read your edit (was too hot headed about my first point to read it).
How old was the person in the convo?

 

[Bugz]

She is 17/18 - yr 13 possible yr 12.

Regardless of the fact she got taught it in school or not, I believe it something everything should know and be aware of.

Secondly, it was obvious she had no clue about the 2nd world war in general, as my update showed how she believed the jews died at the bomb dropped at hiroshima, not realising how absurdly stupid that sounds.

And yes, ofcourse it's about educating people. But I always believed this is one of them things you just know. Besides, I've had lessons on WW1/2 from yr 7 to yr 11 (when I dropped history) and some schools even look at it in primary school. There's also various TV programs on about it and a lot of subjects cross into Hitler's ideology amongst other things.

P.S - I never at all said I flamed her; just I was angered by her ignorance. Besides, holocaust with a capital H, is, I believe, a dictionary definition of the mass slaughter in the Nazi concentration camps. Not to mention open any history book; watch any history program; read any article and it is very often mentioned in tht way.

 

[Ch3tan]

Bugz, some people simply do not care. She might have not paid attention in school, forgotten because she did not connect with it -maybe she had a bad teacher. Could be a 101 reasons, at least you questioning her not knowing what it was has led to her trying to find out about it, even if wiki is her only source of info.

 

[fl3a]

Judging people because they´re not familiar with the usual terminology is not fair in my opinion, especially when we´re talking about young people who are usually not interested in boring things like history.

i would rather say that tidbits of history as in when did the stone age end, who was the last emperor in the holy roman empire, who wore what colors alexander the greats battles are quite possibly in that category, that we cant blame people for not knowing exactly what happened or knowing the terminology.
we cant blame people for not knowing the terminology of the internal combustion engine, as long as they know that stuff explodes and the car goes wroooom.
but these things are not part of our everyday lives in the sense that the knowledge and rememberance of those things has effects on us. the difference between not knowing a tidbit of information from history and not knowing what the holocaust is or who stalin was is quite huge. one is a knowledge of history, the other is basically just information that everyone who lives in our world should have.
im sure a hunter in the congo couldnt give a flying fuck about some europeans dying in the war, just as we dont really care about the warlords near his home. but we as europeans should care and know how it has affected our lives.

 

[Thorwyn]

Many years ago, when I was still in school (gee.. that´s MANY years ago ), I read a book called "What I know about Hitler". It was a collection of statements of school kids aged 10-16. The ammount of bullshit in that book was mind blowing. (Mind you, I`m from Germany... we´re litterally getting spammed with 1933-45 history in school).
Many kids connected Hitler to the German Democratic Republic ("Hitler build the Berlin Wall"), others said he dropped the A-bomb, yet others said he started the "third world war between Germany and America". Trust me, a lack of knowledge and ignorance at that age is not unusual.

With every new generation, history is fading away. Few people from back then are still alive and as soon as they´re gone, it´s getting even harder to counter the effects of forgetting.

@fl3a
Stalin is a pretty good example. Without googling, just from your memory... what do you guys here know about Stalin?

 

[Ch3tan]

Not a lot, we didn't cover Russian history in any depth; if I wanted to know I would have had to teach myself, it's certainly not something my parents know -hell my dad didn't go to school past 12. Quite frankly I had better things to do with my time as a kid than read history I was not required to.

 

[Talivar]

Stalin was far worse thahn Hitler, he was the TRUE monster of ww2, but he won and history is written by those who win. Same with Alexander the Great ect, he did a lot of nasty things aswell but since we kinda won history writes him in a much nicer fashion. To me you cannot get mad at other peoples lack of knowledge unless you know everything about everything because otherwise its a bit hypocritical. Ofc some things seem more obvious than others but not everyone shares same interest or even has parents that share same interest. Who knows maybe these ppls parents and grandparents cant talk about WW2 because it still haunts them.

 

[Turamber]

The holocaust is one of the pivotal events in world history. There is no excuse for somebody not knowing what it was. Lack of knowledge of such events leaves the door open for them to happen again, which is very disturbing.

To learn from the past we need to know about it.

 

[soze]

When should you discuss the War’s with a child? If the school does not cover it do you just bring it up in day to day conversation? The first i ever heard about the war's was from my Granddad when he was crying on Remembrance Sunday but it did not fully sink in till I covered it at GCSE. Some kids will just have parents who do not know anything about it and do not care and probably never ask why the poppy is significant.

 

[Maeloch]

Hrmmm the Scots lass in the BB house atm (who is a model....Zzzzz). One of the other housemates asks her what languages she speaks. She sez she speaks some German. She sez it's quite easy to learn as the sentance order is the same, in other languages it's different - it's because of the history. Oh, she's brighter than she looks. But then she goes on about the history, the sentence order is the same because the Germans where here during the War. She didn't elaborate if we were on the same side, or in fact we lost the War, I'd have been interested what happened either way.

 

[old.Tohtori]

Bugz is flaming a 12-13 year old...

Christ on a pogo shtick.

She doesn't know, tell her, now she knows. Do something you claim other people should do.

If i wanted to be truthful and "argumentative"(as some people see it as), i'd say something else.

 

[Chronictank]

Thing is, regardless whether it is pivotal event in history why should they have to know about it?

Most people don't know about the history of the Mongols or how close Europe was to being invaded
How about the rise and fall of rome?
The islamic revolution?
so on and so forth

The world war and holocaust are not as significant today as they were 20,30 years ago when the effects were still being felt.
I think kids today will remember the war on Iraq, 9/11, London Bombings, the first black president of the US etc.. as they relate to them alot more than the holocaust

 

[old.Tohtori]

It seems important because there are still people alive that were in it.

Give a good 50 years or so, when we're the "elderly", and the ww2 will be as important as the waterloo. Maybe someone will write a folksy song about hitler and that's it.

Thing is, it's not that important compared to other wars, it's important to the people who were in it and directly related, but for example i'd say the Finns care/know more about the winter war then brits about the world wars.

Might be a bad example as WW2 is a moneycow for the game/movie industry.

 

[Dark Orb Choir]

try telling anyone who served in WW2 that it wasnt important, jesus toht, come on, if the allies had lost then you would not be living in the society where you are allowed the freedom to express your views as easy as you are now

WW2 changed everything and if you cant see that then i seriuosly doubt you can see anything