228776e

UNITED KINGDOM (ENGLAND)
The sample
The sample consists of three textbooks dealing with modern world history (T1), general
history from 1901 to the present day (T2), and Weimar and Nazi Germany (T3), published
or reprinted in 2008, 2009 and 2013 and designed for pupils aged 15-16, 12-14 and 16-18
respectively. The Holocaust is presented primarily in sections and chapters called ‘The
Persecution of Minorities’, ‘Why do Genocides Happen’ and ‘Why Did the Nazis Commit
Mass Murder’, which are in turn located in broader thematic sections devoted to ‘Hitler’s
Germany’, ‘Living and Working’ and ‘Germany 1933-45’. The books provide a broad range
of thematic foci including political and economic events, social policy as well as social,
cultural and everyday life. Unlike many textbooks, T2 places the Holocaust not within the
political and military history of the Second World War, but in relation to other genocides of
the twentieth century.
Scale
In accordance with the chapters devoted to German history, T1 and T3 characterize the
Holocaust as a national event. T1 even refers to ‘Hitler’s Germany’. T2, devoted to genocides
generally, does not present details of the locations involved or the geographical extent of
the Holocaust, except in a map of Europe showing the system of railway tracks leading
to Auschwitz. A more precise localization of the event is indicated in aerial photographs
of Auschwitz in T2 and T3. The textbooks contextualize the event within the timeframe of
Nazism and the Second World War (1933-1945), but also include dates of significant events
in 1935, 1938, 1939 and refer to the escalation of the violence and killing in 1941 and 1942.
Protagonists
All known victim groups are mentioned in the books. Jews are identified almost exclusively
as objects of discrimination and persecution; scant detail is given about the lives of Jews
before or after the war, or of the history of antisemitism or of immigration to Israel.
Jewish resistance is covered extensively in T1, whereas T2 and T3 do not address either
camp or ghetto uprisings. Visual materials depict both victims and perpetrators, although
the sources themselves reflect the perpetrators’ viewpoints (in images ranging from
propaganda posters, antisemitic cartoons, film stills, book illustrations and documents).
Perpetrators are identified as ‘Nazis’, ‘the Nazis’, ‘Hitler’, ‘Goebbels’, ‘the Nazi government’,
‘the German army’, ‘the Nazi regime’ and ‘the Third Reich’. Hitler features prominently but
is not held solely responsible for the event and his image does not feature in any of the
sections dealing with the Holocaust in these textbooks. Sentences are generally structured
such that perpetrators are the subjects of significant actions, or else they avoid mentioning
the subjects of actions by employing the passive mode. None of the books feature
collaborators or collaborating countries. However, T1 presents portraits of the well-known
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