What do students know and understand about the Holocaust?

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Encountering representations of the Holocaust
their critical role in helping grasp a sense of the
reality of the Holocaust.
Students demonstrated sensitivity and concern
in relation to the question of responsibility to the
individuals captured in the photos in terms of
dignifying their memory and whether, with this
concern in mind, classroom use of atrocity images
is appropriate. Students wrestled with this dilemma
but a significant number felt that the educational
weight of the images assuages any possible ethical
wrongdoing to the memory of the victims depicted.
Indeed, it was felt that such engagement with the
images is, in itself, an empowering memorial.
The conversations were evidence of the maturity in
young people’s critical thinking.
While this report is not arguing either for or against
the inclusion of atrocity images of the Holocaust in
schemes of work, the interviews conducted with
young people do raise some important pedagogic
questions:
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Do atrocity images of the Holocaust have a
legitimate place in young people’s learning?
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Do young people have the right to see such
important archival representation as evidence of
the Holocaust?
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Do such images provide a vital tool in developing
consciousness of the reality of the Holocaust?
■■
Should the classroom use of such images be
negotiated with students rather than simply
presented or not presented to them?
■■
Might young people be more resilient to the
potential negative effects of atrocity imagery than
is generally attributed to them?
■■
Are there strategies that teachers can employ to
support young people in engaging sensitively with
images of brutality and death?
■■
If they avoid the use of Holocaust imagery,
are teachers missing the opportunity to help
young people through their encounters with
images which they are likely, in all probability, to
meet outside the classroom without the aid of
structured framing or support?
Across all three modes of encounter examined
here – survivor testimony, narrative fiction and use of
atrocity images – students appeared to be striving to
find something that felt like a ‘real’ understanding of
the Holocaust. This was predicated for many upon
an emotional or affective engagement, where the
cognitive and affective are intertwined – or, in the
words of Year 11 student Lenny, cited earlier, ‘You
understand by being upset’. Despite Elie Wiesel’s
(1989) proclamation at the start of this chapter
– that only those who lived the Holocaust can
transform that experience into ‘knowledge’ – many
of the students who took part in this study were
nonetheless motivated to attempt to draw their own
personal meaning from these historical events.
Summary
■■
Across the student survey responses, a very high
proportion of participants indicated that they had
learned about the Holocaust while in school,
including more than 85 per cent of students from
Years 10 and above. More surprising was the high
number of students who had learned about the
Holocaust at primary school or in Years 7 and 8,
with 28.5 per cent reporting that they had learned
about the Holocaust at primary level. This raises
important questions about the form and content of
these youngest students’ educational encounters
with the Holocaust.
■■
The majority of teaching about the Holocaust
happens in history classrooms, with 86.1 per cent
of all those who had learned about the subject in
a school context saying they had encountered it in
history, while 37.5 per cent had encountered the
Holocaust in religious education, 27.0 per cent in
English and 26.2 per cent in assemblies.
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Two-thirds (66.1 per cent) of students reported
that they had heard about the subject outside
school. At interview, knowledge – or at least
awareness – of the Holocaust was described
as ‘mainstream’, so embedded in popular
consciousness that it had become something
‘people know about without even realising they’ve
learned about it’. This did not appear to dampen
students’ interest or enthusiasm for learning about
this history in a school context.
■■
The findings from a number of measures across
the survey all indicate that students have very
positive attitudes towards learning about the
Holocaust and that such attitudes remain
broadly stable across gender, year group and
religious affiliation. Significantly, in spite of recently
expressed concerns to the contrary, there did not
appear to be any significant variation between the
attitudes held by those students who took part
in this study that self-identified as Muslim and
the full student cohort. In focus-group interviews,
Muslim students articulated their keen interest
in the subject and, in line with other students,
foregrounded their moral condemnation of the
Holocaust. Some Muslim students appeared to
question the way in which the Holocaust can
be used as political capital in the present. This
data came from only two focus groups, so was
insufficient to draw any firm conclusions. Some
non-Muslim students also expressed similar views.
Further research into this area would be valuable.