• 4 in 10 millennials don't know 6 million Jews were killed in Holocaust (study)
    62 replies, posted
We spent a lot of time on WWII and the Holocaust it seems like, through various classes and years. We didn't glance over it at all. We had to read Anne Frank's diary, watch the movie, write about it, etc. We had sections about it in English class and History. This was in Rural Texas too that everyone likes to shit on. I graduated in 2010 so who knows how the curriculum has changed since then but I find it impossible to not know about the Holocaust if you managed to graduate highschool, get accepted to college, or at least accidentally turn on the History or Military Channel in the US.
The purpose of trigger warnings is not to stop the discussion. Instead, it's to give you space and time to think about it and process it and other things like that. Simply saying, "I'm triggered, therefore shut up," isn't be acceptable. If you're made uncomfortable by the Holocaust, good. You're supposed to be! It was a goddamn genocide, one of the darkest times in human history. Nobody gets a free pass from learning about it because genocide is still happening all over the world. So, maybe remembering that 6 million Jews were killed isn't important, maybe what's important is remembering that a whole fuck ton of people, Jewish, Catholics handicapped, and LGBT+ people just to name a few, were systematically killed. But if you read the article, some people don't even know the word "Holocaust." That's fucking horrendous. So is not learning about the Armenian genocide, and all the others I don't know enough about because my education was shit.
The holocaust was a horrible thing, but I think that we get too hung up on it, rather than learning about other horrible crimes against nature that also has happend, as if it was the only major genocide that has happend. I was taught about it in school, but I also have a personal interest for history so I had heard about it before, but I don't remember any exact numbers.
That doesn't really stop the uneducated. Class watched The Boy with the Striped Pyjamas and afterwards half of the girls asked if everything had happened IRL.
Thankfully, you have a poor misunderstanding of what our education system is like.
I am pretty sure that the exact number is not even known definitively by actual historians, we mostly know that it was "an immense amount/millions" and that it was one of the most horrific atrocities in human history.
It is, quite a lot, we went over it multiple times. That's what makes this poll super surprising
title is missing "in the U.S." pretty big omission considering the culture of stupidity and enabling ridiculous shite like holocaust denial that exists in your third-world society
It kind of is in France. I had to see it, everyone I know had to see it. It's definitely very effective at reminding people of what happened.
I'd like to see similar studies about other bits of history of similar importance/nature. How many know about the atrocities of the soviet union and maoist china, the half intentional genocide of the naitives in the US, the barbary slave trade and so on. And for that matter, how about the philisophical and political underpinnings of the west? It's my understanding that while the american system drills the images of it's history into people, but not the context for them, the political/philisophical reasons behind them or even the most basic detail. Like everyone knows about the Deleware crossing, because it's one hell of an image, but nobody that i've talked to who isn't otherwise interested in history can tell you why he did it, or more importantly why it was important, apart from some offhanded mumbling of "freedom i guess" Is it any wonder we're failing to maintain our socities when our education systems are so unfit for purpose as to fail to inform us of our society's own basic nature?
memememememememeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee also pc helicopter parents whom were raised to and of memememememememeeeeeeeee me ME Shit that happened to whatever that one time doesn't mean much when the Cardashians take Manhattan is fixing to be on. Priorities.
Honestly people not knowing the exact figure of the statistic didn't shock me that much. People are just bad with numbers sometimes. What really surprised me was that two-thirds of millennials could not identify in the survey what Auschwitz was. It's one of the key locations when talking about the Holocaust. And knowing the American education system I wouldn't be surprised if it was the only location ever named in a curriculum.
I'm just as annoyed that people only focus on the number of jews killed and gloss over the other 5 million people, including the title of this very article.
The more likely reason is that most people don't care, and the Holocaust (plus WW2) are becoming increasingly less relevant to peoples lives today. One of the things I noticed outside of school is how quickly people forget how to do algebra and calculus, forget large chunks of history, can't tell you about Mitochondria in cells or the differences between protons, neutrons, electrons and bonbons. Unless you actively talk about or make use of something, your knowledge soon fades. With the holocaust, people eventually just forget it as it melts away into just another part of human history. The Holocaust took place nearly three quarters of a century ago, and almost everyone who was around for it is dead now. I would imagine most people are vaguely aware of the Nazis slaughtering people in the war, but beyond that the details don't really matter that much to many. I know people who were clueless about the existence of the USSR at all, so it isn't a surprise in the slightest.
Another example I could give, that obviously isn't as scientific as a study by a major organisation, but I remember being baffled that a friend of mine had never heard of Alexander the Great and gave him some shit for it. Then the next day, he was apparently so offended by my bants that he went around and asked 50 or so kids whether they'd heard of him either, and I think something like 8 answered in the positive. Now to note, my school wasn't bad, but it was heavily focused on the physical sciences, so it's not so preposterous for people to not be taught, forget, or just not be interested in topics relating to history, especially if they're more focused on something else. A lot of my friends were focused on their math and science studies that they just skipped history.
With the internet being a thing and with liberals calling conservatives nazis,you'd think that everyone over the age of 10 should know what the Holocaust is. But boy was I dead wrong...
Even in Germany this is a thing. It wasn't until after I was done with school I learned about the other 5 million holocaust victims. The 6 million jews number was really hammered into me.
So what? It doesn't matter if it was 6 million, more or less. What matters is that it happened and we shouldn't let something like it happen again. Also, interesting fact: we actually don't know the exact amount, the Germans were made to sign a piece of paper saying it was 6 millions and that's were the number is from. It could be greatly exaggerated or to small, we will never know. In Sweden I think we focus too much on this topic and leave out other important genocides like the Armenian. Hell, I wasn't even taught about the Sovjet or Maoist genocides that led to the death of many more than the Jewish until I decided to check it out for myself. 7 years ago when I went to high school we had actual communists with the flag and everything there trying to recruit pupils to the youth communist party. Almost no one thought there was anything strange about it and it was even approved by the principal. Imagine that happening in the US. I guess my point is that although it's important to know about these major historic events the specifics don't matter that much and I think the school should focus more on giving a broader education about modern history.
FWIW the study has been reported on by reliable, hopefully fact-checking sources like the NYT and Washington Post. According to those sources the study has some reliable Holocaust Reserch institutes behind it including Yad Vashem and the US Holocaust Memorial Museum. For comparison, here's a 2014 study conducted on Holocaust education in Britain.(PDF)
I don't recall ever learning about Stalin's atrocities in school, until I was in vocational school, but I had already learned it from elsewhere by then. Until then he was just that pretty cool Russian guy who helped fuck up the very bad Hitler guy.
fucking hell, in NJ every year they screamed at us about the holocaust, had us sit in the Cafeteria/auditorium for a huge presentation/conference about it with pictures and had a speaker who was a survivor or family of a survivor tell us about it. are the other states really that abysmal?
this is way too ridiculous
My teacher did a pretty good job of emphasizing that the Eastern Front was essentially two evil empires battling it out. That made the lead into the Cold War sound a lot smoother than just "...and then suddenly we're enemies with USSR".
Im thinking this is less just about the holocaust and more about the failure of schooling institutions when it comes to modern history, to be fair even less people know about the 100's of millions of deaths in the USSR and under chairman Mao in china, there really needs to be a concrete modern history teaching of ideology and conflict so we know exactly what certain kinds of ideas can lead to.
I got quite an extensive history education in Texas but I think that's because my teachers were passionate about it... my little brother doesn't seem to be getting the same quality. I will add an exception to that for my 7th grade US History teacher who insisted on calling slaves "indentured servants" and refusing to cover material that made white or white supremacist actions appear in a negative light.
Honestly though, I can't blame folks for not remembering every single detail. We live in a busy world where we have a million things to do at once. I'm not going to waste my time remembering every historical event and every mathematical equation. I have work to do and a life to keep from falling apart. If I want to know something I look it up on the internet. If history is your business then you should absolutely know something like this, but if you stack shelves for a living then you have more important things to think about like how much you're gonna have to save for your next car payment.
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