What do students know and understand about the Holocaust?

Who were the victims?
135
to a single cause: Hitler.
Such a monocausal explanation is, of course,
not shared by all – but iterations of it do appear to
be held by many. Aside from how it constitutes
an impoverished explanatory account, the notion
that Hitler alone explains ‘Why the Jews?’ both
reflects the state of students’ knowledge and
understanding, and also has a negative impact on
them. It encourages students to engage in teleology,
to decontextualise Hitler and his antisemitism from
the rest of European history, making it possible for
Tom (Year 10, NE1) to suggest, ‘I don’t think anyone
knows where Hitler got his ideas of being against
Jewish people from’.
It also opens up a murky space where students
attempt to rationalise Hitler and his deeds, with
mixed results. Out of this exercise, Juliette (Year 9,
LON5) reassuringly concludes that ‘Hitler had his
reasons and we have to respect that that was how
he was brought up to live’, and Amanda (Year 9,
LON6) emphasises, ‘He is only human, like people
make mistakes, it is just that the extent of his
mistake was just a lot bigger than the rest’.
Why the Jews? – Concluding remarks
This section has outlined the many ways in which
students engage and wrestle with the question of
‘Why the Jews?’ It has been shown that student
approaches reflect and reveal levels of historical
knowledge and understanding as well as conceptual
frameworks. The latter are immensely influential,
for they help ‘students to contextualise, organise
and evaluate’ (Howson and Shemilt 2011: 73)
their substantive knowledge and so construct
explanatory accounts.
Contrary to the pilot studies mentioned at the
start of this section, it was found (especially in
interview) that most students were not necessarily
paralysed by the question ‘Why the Jews?’ – they
could and did offer answers to it. However, the
extent of responses, not to mention their rigour,
was often found to be wanting. Rather than
forward secure and developed accounts which
took into consideration a selection of causal
factors, students were prone to gesturing in a
fragmented fashion towards ideas about who the
Jews were or accusations levied against them.
Often, there was a lack of reflection or reflexivity as
to how these notions were framed, with students
describing common myths and misconceptions
in ways which made it unclear as to how far they
knew of their invalidity.
A headline finding was student ignorance of
‘antisemitism’ as a term or substantive concept.
While there was awareness that Jews had been
subjected to prejudice and discrimination at other
times in history, students rarely framed this as a longterm
‘cause’ of the Holocaust. Nor did most students
show familiarity with the historical development of
anti-Jewish sentiment or the relationship between
anti-Judaism and racial antisemitism. This was
apparent not just in discussion of antisemitism, but
also in the ways that students tried to account for
Hitler’s personal hatred. On this, the majority of
students seemed unaware of how Hitler’s views
related to his historical context.
Summary
■■
The majority of students identify Jews as victims
of ‘the Holocaust’. With age, students become
more likely to include other groups alongside
Jews as Holocaust victims. This suggests
students’ conception of ‘the Holocaust’ is not fixed
and immutable, but fluid, dynamic and malleable.
However, in running counter to conventional
definitions (see Chapter 1), the trend towards
broad, inclusive notions of ‘who were the victims’
of the Holocaust is inherently problematic.
■■
Homosexuals are the group most likely to
be included by students when they extend
their definition of Holocaust victims.
Many incorrectly believe homosexuals were
subjected to a programme of systematic,
organised extermination.
■■
Disabled people are the second non-Jewish
victim group included by students in broadened
definitions of Holocaust victims. Paradoxically,
student knowledge and understanding of the
disabled experience is severely lacking.
■■
Roma and Sinti (Gypsies) are the third non-Jewish
group students see as victims of the Holocaust.
Students are, in the main, completely unfamiliar
with the fate of the Roma and Sinti.
■■
Students of all ages have broad awareness
that a variety of victim groups were targeted by
the Nazi regime and their collaborators. Jews,
homosexuals, disabled people and – to a lesser
extent – Roma and Sinti (Gypsies) appear at
the forefront of students’ consciousness.
Other groups including Jehovah’s Witnesses,
Poles, Slavs and Russian Prisoners of War are
familiar to only some students.
■■
There is considerable ambiguity around and
uncertainty about the precise policies enacted
against victim groups and each group’s
experience. More is ‘known’ about the experience
of some groups compared to others, and older
students tend to demonstrate greater breadth of
knowledge and understanding. In general, though,
www.ioe.ac.uk/holocaust