The 'Couldn't think where to put this' thread part 2 or 'does my comment merit a NEW THREAD?'

McHammer

Man city game has been moved to Wed 27th Feb.

SuzanneClaret

IronHerb said:

Apparently this AC's house and it's up for sale -

https://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-77197013.html

I cant say I'm surprised, it looks proper pokey... no room to swing a cat.

grey_til_I_dye

Five per cent of UK adults do not believe the Holocaust took place and one in 12 believes its scale has been exaggerated, a survey has found.

The poll of more than 2,000 people was carried out by Opinion Matters for the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust (HMDT).

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-47015184

God help us all.

thornburyiron

Part of the problem is that it’s history is no longer taught in most schools. My children, now in their forties, were taken to the concentration camps as part of their curriculum. The secondary school my granddaughter is now in has no plans to do such trips as at the moment none of the years 7-11 cover the world wars in their history.
I’d be interested to see the demographics of the 5% who deny it and the 8.33% who think the numbers are exaggerated. Combined it’s a scary total.
With the growing tendency of vandalism of memorials it’s a worrying trend.

grey_til_I_dye

thorn

it’s history is no longer taught in most schools.

That isn't true. It is taught as part of the KS3 History curriculum, which all children follow (before they take options for GCSE's.) This is compulsory, not an option.

Dodger58

As a schoolboy of 17, I went on a cricket tour of British Armed Forces in Germany - so a group of self-confident young sportsmen. On the trip (in 1976) we were taken around the Bergen Belsen concentration camp. The camp was burned to avoid the spread of disease within days of it's discovery.

All the pathways were still intact, there were white stones outlining every building, so you could picture the scene. There was a brick museum built where the gatehouse had once stood.

The museum was full of old fading black and white photos of the scenes the 'liberators' found. There was little left to the imagination, although I would be surprised if they images had not already been 'sanitised' to a large degree.

One of the things that most struck me (as a cocky young man) was the total lack of wildlife on the site. No sounds of crickets in the grass, no sign of any life. Even in the air no birds flew over. I haven't been back there since, so I don't know if signs of life have returned all these years later.

But clearly I have never forgotten - and it is extremely important that we are not allowed to forget - the lessons of the past must be shared and learned.

MrsGrey

The deliberate targetting and extermination of groups of people* by the Nazis extended beyond the Jews. (I'm sure you well-informed folks know that, but it is something that is even more forgotten than the Shoah). Depending on which figures you use, Jewish deaths account for between a third and a half of the total number.

I think it is a shame that this wider meaning of 'Holocaust' is largely ignored, because when you teach the Holocaust as just an anti-semitic programme, the lessons history teaches us are incomplete.

*amongst whom were Roma, Slavs, Poles, disabled people, people with learning difficulties, catholics, homosexual people...

PrestonHammer

Dodger58

A mate of mine was based in Germany and speaking to him 15 years or so ago, he said the same thing about Belsen and the surrounding area. He said it was just dead, no wildlife, nothing.

thornburyiron

Grey I know it is compulsory but it is not taught how I was taught or how my children were taught in lots of schools. From my friend’s grandchildren experiences it seems it was briefly referred to under a subject which covered various disparate topics.
I think it should be seriously covered by including visits to the camps or film footage of what these camps were like. I doubt that would happen however as it would be considered too harrowing but it would help make people understand.
As I said I’d like to know the demographics of the poll sample and the groups within the various percentages.

ASLEFshrugged

I learnt about the Nazis without having to go outside of Dagenham but at a time when some schools are struggling to afford text books overseas trips are not going to be a priority.

I looked at the websites for Holocaust Memorial Day Trust who commissioned the survey and Opinions Matter who conducted it but neither of them has published the actual data. They surveyed 2000 people and then "weighed" the results to reflect UK demographics.

ASLEFshrugged

In 2016 University College London released a report after surveying 9500 secondary school kids, the general summery seems to be that while 85% had been taught about the Holocaust by Year 10 not many knew more than the basics.

Maybe its not kids that have the problem...

https://www.holocausteducation.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/What-do-students-know-and-understand-about-the-Holocaust1.pdf

MrsGrey

That is quite interesting. I've only got to the end of Ch 1, but it is already thought-provoking ;ok

grey_til_I_dye

The fact that it is (quite properly) a compulsory aspect of education should, imo, only be part of the story.

Parents and relatives have a responsibility to make sure that their children understand the need for acceptance of difference, and the moral and political dangers of extremism.

If there are children that don't know about the Holocaust, that is not, imo, simply a failure of schooling.

Dodger58

There was a brilliant series on the 1970s called The World at War, narrated by Laurence Olivier, I bought the DVD set for my own children’s education as I believed it should be in School syllabus, but never was.

One of the episodes was specifically about the camps, it should be compulsory viewing. But I’m afraid, as Thorn says above, it would be viewed as too harrowing for today.

I would also strongly recommend the film Denial, based on Deborah Lipstadt's book History on Trial: My Day in Court with a Holocaust Denier, to those who have not yet seen it.

MunichHammer

I was a teacher of history at German schools and the 3rd Reich takes up at least half a scholl year in the Curriculum. Usually it also includes a visit to a concentration camp and I have been to two different ones so far, Mauthausen as a pupil and Dachau as a teacher.

I know that you will never reach all the pupils but from a general perspective, every pupil you do reach is worth the effort.


I find the current political movement in Germany and Europe altogether extremely worrying, as it reminds me of the 1930's again. The 20's were a period of Wealth, similar to the times since the war but now people are forgetting the horrors of the right wing parties and vote them into parliament all across the continent.

Dodger58

Munich whilst I generally agree, I would suggest that the 'horrors' are not restricted to 'right' or 'left' politics - they is a lot to be wary of from both extremes.

BubblesNeverDies

Munich, I'll have to correct you there about the 20's being a period of wealth if you're referring to Germany.
In July 1923 there were 353,412 marks to the dollar, in November, 4,200,000,000,000.

MunichHammer

Bubbles - the 20s are usually referred to as a golden age. Even in Germany. I did not have any specific exchange rate in mind but rather the general consensus.

BubblesNeverDies

Munich, I'm reading "The Dark Valley" by Piers Brendon and the 20s were anything but a golden age. ;ok

BubblesNeverDies

Munich, my mistake, 1924-1929 were a golden age ;ok

ASLEFshrugged

I recommend "Before the deluge" by Otto Friedrich.

It might have been a "Golden Age" for some but for a lot of people it was a pretty miserable time which is why Hitler was able to exploit the discontent.

Politically it was chaos with numerous changes of government, the shortest being Herman Muller's 86 days as Chancellor in 1920 although he lasted longer the second time, from June 1928 until March 1930.

MrsGrey

Sounds familiar.

chicagohammer

I recall visiting Sachenhasuen outside Berlin, it is what and where you expect such a place to be, in the woods, off the beaten track and out of sight, then I visited Dachau and was astonished to see that it was in the center of the village, there is no way the residents had no idea what was going on, I submit that many felt powerless, but they knew.

Mrs Grey is correct in that the evils perpetrated by the Nazi regime extended beyond the persecution of the Jews, they considered numerous races and those of a different disposition as sub human and treated them ruthlessly and without mercy, but the extermination of the Jews was a central focus of Nazi ideology and I think that it is what elevates and focuses the fate of the Jews when discussioning the Holocaust.

MrsGrey

Chicago, you make an interesting observation re collusion. It's something I wasn't too aware of, but in the report that ASLEF linked to, they highlight the issue of widespread collusion by ordinary folk and other regimes, as well as the issue that the UK and others knew what was going on before the camps were 'discovered'. They raise the fact that these aspects are often not addressed in the teaching/ wider discussion.

MunichHammer

Chicago- Dachau was the first concentration camp and started off as a Prison for political dissenters. Yes, there was a crematorium and small gas Chambers but it wasn't what most people think of when they hear concentration camp. THAT would be something like Auschwitz or Treblinka.

MrsGrey

Most of the murders were in Poland, not Germany - is that right, Munich?

MunichHammer

As far as I am aware, yes. The Nazis wanted their "Lebensraum im Osten" (Living space in the east) so they built up their main camps as far east as they could.

ASLEFshrugged

Btw if anyone claims the British invented concentration camps during the Boer War we got the idea from the Americans who used them in the Philippines who got the idea from the Spanish who used them in Cuba who got the idea from the American reservation system.

Kuchinghammer

I'm going to write a long comment later, since I taught 20c History back in 70s and 80s Essex... but for now...
A sample of 2,000? Taken when and where? To represent the entire UK population of 60+million?
Something very fishy about this
;hmm

MrsGrey

kuching

It was commissioned by the HMDT, and carried out by a polling company 'Opinion matters' https://www.hmd.org.uk/news/we-release-research-to-mark-holocaust-memorial-day-2019/

The sample make up was weighted to reflect the make up of the UK adult population.

A sample size of 2000 is (according to someone who understand statistics better than I do) is likely to produce reliable results ... within a range. And this reliability level isn't affected by the size of the total population the sample was drawn from.

The journalists who have reported this for the mainstream press have (it seems) used the simplified figures - properly they should be reported as a range, to take account of margins of error. But the standard margin of error at this level is 2.2%

https://www.sciencebuddies.org/science-fair-projects/references/sample-size-surveys

So, not fishy at all. But it would be interesting to know how they weighted it.