What do students know and understand about the Holocaust?

Who were the victims?
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other end of the age spectrum, Jack (Year 12, EE1)
said, ‘Obviously they couldn’t have been Aryan, you
had to be like tall, blond hair, blue eyes, and broad
shouldered’, while Nikki (Year 13, EE1) was even
more specific: the Aryan idyll ‘was the perfect model
and obviously Jews are naturally brunettes, dark
eyes, dark hair’.
When these examples are placed alongside
other findings, like insights into who the Jews were,
questioning whether students really grasp the
nature of Nazi antisemitism becomes more justified.
Certainly a significant proportion of students seem
acquainted with some of the objections and charges
made against Jewry – accusations of overpopulation,
inflated perceptions of wealth, the Dolchstoss – and
a number of students hint at some sort of recognition
that the Nazis were not the first to be hostile towards
the Jews. Yet it is rare to find repeated evidence of
students contemplating changes and continuities
between medieval anti-Judaism and Nazi prejudice,
or fully comprehending the distinctive contours of
Nazi antisemitism.
In light of the substantially larger percentages of
older students who correctly answered the survey
question it is worth considering whether these
observations can be extended to 16 to 18 year olds.
In simple numerical terms ‘antisemitism’ did appear
more often in these focus-group discussions, with
students more generally assured in conversation.
There was also widespread acknowledgement of a
history of anti-Jewish animosity, with some students,
like Gian (Year 12, LON7), explicitly noting ‘a religious
aspect’ and the ‘large role’ played by the Church.
It was equally encouraging to find a number of
these older students positioning Nazi antisemitism
– or, rather, Hitler – in relation to these longer-term
trends. Accordingly, Will (Year 12, LON7) noted
that antisemitism ‘doesn’t just stem from Hitler’s
antisemitism’ but was rather ‘something that Hitler
just latched onto’. Others echoed this sentiment
and extended it. Aimee (Year 13, EE1), for instance,
spoke of how ‘Hitler played on such feelings that
existed already, and sort of twisted and warped it
to them being less of a race than other[s]’. Similarly,
Jamie (Year 13, LON3) pointed to ‘old views that
were held, through much of Europe’, with Hitler
taking these ‘one step further’ by believing ‘in an
entire sort of global conspiracy’.
These were positive findings, suggestive of
students more confident in their understanding of
antisemitism as a substantive concept, conscious of
its historical development, and – as symbolised in the
latter two examples – able to identify characteristics
specific to the Nazi/Hitlerite brand of antisemitism.
Having said this, potential misconceptions and misunderstandings
did not disappear completely among
these older cohorts. Jamie (Year 13, LON3) in fact
demonstrated this when, in outlining the ‘old views’
developed by Hitler, he pointed to ‘anti semitism of
how Jewish people sort of keep wealth amongst
themselves, and are very insular and things like that’.
It would be unfair to say that Jamie was agreeing
or endorsing such ideas, but the issue of Jewish
wealth and unjustified ideas about it was prominent
in a number of discussions with older students.
Paul (Year 12, LON7), for example, talked of how
‘there’s just always been a fear and disliking of Jews;
they are blamed if something goes wrong it’s their
fault’, before suggesting this was ‘partly because
of jealousy, because historically Jews are quite
rich, have a lot of money’. Others spoke of ‘that
reputation for being stingy, for not spending’ (Nikki,
Year 13, EE1), of Jews being ‘stereotypically much
richer than other German people … always viewed
as sort of separate and different’ (Anton, Year 12,
EE1). Still others referred to Jews as being ‘seen as
the people that had a lot of money’ with ‘never seen
to have a homeland, they always seemed to be the
foreigners in another country that wasn’t where they
came from originally’ (Steve, Year 13, LON7).
As with similar remarks outlined in this chapter, it
would be easy to seize upon these comments as
‘proof’ that students harboured unsavoury attitudes.
Instead, they are best viewed as indicators of how
key misconceptions are not necessarily dismissed
with age and as compelling evidence of the need to
further develop students’ critical faculties.
While, in overview, we can say that older
students are more secure in their knowledge and
understanding of antisemitism, and – as a result –
are in a better position to contemplate its role in
the Holocaust, this does not always mean they
were able to construct compelling and convincing
explanations for ‘Why the Jews?’ Indeed, there was
much to suggest that biological determinism and
irrational, mythical hatred was in some cases seen
by students to be of secondary importance behind
more long-standing ‘causes’. Tellingly these included
a number of myths and misperceptions of who the
Jews were.
Hitler
By now it will be apparent that students’
explanations for ‘Why the Jews?’ are shaped by
more than content knowledge alone. For example,
‘knowing’ that there were far fewer Jews in Germany
than was claimed or being aware that not all Jews
were rich or religiously pious can only take a student
so far in constructing a rounded explanatory
account for why the Nazis specifically targeted the
Jews. Likewise, consciousness of historical anti-
Jewish prejudice may help a student recognise
that antisemitism is ‘historically embedded’ (Short
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