What do students know and understand about the Holocaust?

150
Who were the perpetrators and who was responsible?
Table 6.1 Percentage of students, by year group, giving each answer in response to the question, ‘Who
was responsible for the Holocaust?’ (survey question 42)
Total sample
(n=6,897)
Year 7
(n=892)
Year 8
(n=1,026)
Year 9
(n=2,468)
Year 10
(n=1,123)
Year 11
(n=477)
Year 12
(n=552)
Year 13
(n=341)
Hitler
50.7 62.4 58.2 52.9 48.8 43.2 33.3 25.5
Hitler and the Nazis
20.6 11.1 17.0 18.5 24.6 29.6 33.5 25.2
Hitler and the SS and/or other named individual
3.3 0.7 1.9 2.7 3.4 3.6 7.2 12.0
Hitler and the Germans / Germany
3.1 3.7 3.8 3.2 3.0 2.9 1.8 2.1
Hitler, the Nazis and Germany
1.1 0.6 0.9 1.0 1.2 0.6 0.7 3.8
Hitler, the Nazis and the SS
0.6 0.8 0.6 0.4 0.7 1.3 0.5 0.9
Total who referenced Hitler
79.4 79.3 82.4 78.7 81.7 81.2 77.0 69.5
Nazis with no reference to Hitler
10.6 7.5 7.6 12.0 8.5 11.7 14.3 16.7
Germans / Germany / German people
3.9 6.1 5.2 3.9 3.1 1.9 2.0 2.1
Nazis and Germans
0.9 0.3 0.7 1.1 0.8 0.6 0.7 1.8
A relevant answer that did not fit the categories
3.6 3.3 2.5 2.9 4.7 2.7 4.3 9.1
Inaccurate answer
1.6 3.5 1.6 1.4 1.2 1.9 1.7 0.8
example, it was 62.4 per cent and 58.2 per cent,
respectively. In contrast, older students attributed
less individual responsibility to Hitler. In Years 12
and 13, for example, only 33.3 per cent and 25.5
per cent, respectively, claimed that Hitler had
sole responsibility for the Holocaust. This is neatly
illustrated in Figure 6.5.
In a similar vein, older students (Years 10 to 13)
were more likely to attribute responsibility to Hitler
and other individuals or organisations within the Nazi
state than younger students (Years 7 to 9).
For example, whereas 43.7 per cent of Year 12
students held Hitler and others responsible for the
Holocaust, only 16.9 per cent of Year 7 students
offered a similar perspective.
In overview, it appears that although Hitler is seen
as the person most responsible for the Holocaust
across all age groups, older students are more likely
to appreciate that he was not solely responsible
than their younger counterparts. For many younger
students, Hitler’s role in the Holocaust was allencompassing
and emphatic. At the most simplistic
level he is seen to be personally involved in the
persecution and murder of Jews; however, the vast
majority of students also understood that Hitler could
not have carried out the Holocaust by himself. These
students subsequently believed he ordered and
commanded others to fulfil his goals. Typically, these
acts were seen as a top-down process, with Hitler
as executive director and other individuals blindly
following his will.
Students in Years 12 and 13 often exhibited a
more sophisticated understanding of this process. For
example, several older students appreciated to some
degree that the power structures in the Third Reich
were complex and multifaceted. Many, although
by no means all, of these older students argued,
therefore, that an uncomplicated top-down power