What do students know and understand about the Holocaust?

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Who were the victims?
Figure 5.1 Non-Jewish groups identified as victims of the Holocaust in students’ responses
to ‘Who were the victims of the Holocaust?’ (percentage of students)
Percentage of students
100
90
80
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
Disabled
people
Roma/Sinti
(Gypsies)
Homosexuals
Jehovah’s
Witnesses
Poles Black people Mental health
problems
Victim groups cited by students
■ Year 7 ■ Year 8 ■ Year 9 ■ Year 10 ■ Year 11 ■ Year 12 ■ Year 13
generally very shallow. Movement from exclusive
to inclusive understandings was not therefore
the product of growing levels of knowledge; if
anything, change occurred without this. The picture
is complicated further by trends relating to which
non-Jewish groups were commonly referred to by
students as Holocaust victims. A breakdown of
these findings is shown in Figure 5.1.
These results clearly indicate that when students
define Holocaust victims as Jews ‘plus one’ group
(or more), they are most likely to include homosexuals.
The percentage of students who do so is consistently
high across the age range, suggesting that many
students are attuned to the persecution of homosexuals
by the Nazi regime. The extent to which this
is matched by detailed knowledge and understanding
will be explored further in the next section.
The second most frequently cited group is disabled
people. Although the number of references made
was less pronounced than for those to homosexuals,
there was nevertheless a sharp increase between
Years 7 and 8 followed by consistent growth over the
next four year groups. Since the percentages are not
as high as for homosexuals it might be inferred that
students are less certain about according the status
of ‘Holocaust victims’ to disabled people, yet the
number who do remains significant.
The third group referred to by a sizeable
proportion of students was the Roma and Sinti
(Gypsies). Interestingly, it is not until Year 10 (14 to 15
year olds) that the percentage of students including
the Roma and Sinti comes anywhere near the
other two groups: a notable finding since, in purely
numerical terms, the number of Gypsies killed by the
regime is estimated to range between 250,000 and
one million (Crowe 2000: 197) – a figure far greater
than the number of disabled people (200,000–
250,000) and homosexuals (10,000–15,000) killed
by the regime. It is also notable that, after spiking in
Year 10, the percentage actually declines for two year
groups before leaping to its peak in Year 13.
Final mention should be made of the proportion
of students who indicated that Black people were
victims of the Holocaust. Although it is some way
behind the proportion indicating the three groups
already mentioned, around a quarter of students
in Years 8 to 12 (12 to 17 year olds) identified
Black people as Holocaust victims. This finding is
noteworthy when mapped against the historical
experience of Black people under Nazism. Within
the Nazi ‘world view’ Black people were viewed
as racially inferior, ‘degenerate’, and therefore a
potential threat to the well-being of the German
nation. In turn, this group was subjected to brutality
and persecution.
Mixed-race children (some descended from
relations between Black French soldiers resident
in the Rhineland in the 1920s and white German
women – the so-called ‘Rhineland bastards’ – and
others from male German colonists returning
to Germany in the interwar period) experienced
particular discrimination, and from 1937 around 600
to 800 were forcibly sterilised (Longerich 2010: 93).
Some Black people were also incarcerated in Nazi
camps during the period of the Third Reich and a
few died at the hands of the regime.
Despite the tragedy of these experiences, at no
point did the regime resolve to pursue a policy of
murder against Black people. This raises the question
of the grounds on which students believed Black
people could be victims of the Holocaust. Interestingly,
on the rare occasion when students mentioned Black
people as victims in the focus-group interviews, they
did so with considerable uncertainty.