What do students know and understand about the Holocaust?

Who were the perpetrators and who was responsible?
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introduced on a number of occasions by older
students, and appeared within a general assurance
in speaking about propaganda and its mechanics.
As a result many older students appeared to have
a much better grasp of how Hitler appealed to
and influenced the German people.
In general, older students placed less emphasis
on Hitler ‘tricking’ or ‘brainwashing’ the general
populace and gave more consideration to why
Hitler’s views might have been attractive to a broader
range of German citizens during the 1930s and early
1940s. Moreover, a lot of students were able to move
beyond the idea of Hitler alone being responsible
for Nazi propaganda, naming Joseph Goebbels
as an important figure. Indeed, one student argued,
‘Hitler was incredibly lucky, he had by his side a very
intelligent man in Goebbels who used propaganda
to really reach out to the German people at the
time’ (Jim, Year 13, LON7).
Overall, therefore, students in Years 12 and 13
seemed to hold conceptualisations of propaganda
that were able to either allow them to move beyond,
or at the very least rethink, perceptions of Hitler
as simply the figurative snake-charmer or spellcasting
wizard. This did not necessarily prevent the
persistence of ‘brainwashing’ as an explanatory idea
for some Year 12 and 13 students, but it did see
– in the accent of ‘influence’, for example – those
German people exposed to propaganda actually
being invested with a greater measure of agency.
Explanatory accounts:
Fear, terror and intimidation
The second set of student explanations for the
behaviour of the German people gravitated around a
conviction that the German people lived in a climate
of fear and intimidation which typically led them to
support or go along with the extreme actions of the
Nazi state. Although this strongly echoed the Cold
War ‘self-image of the Germans as the helpless
victims of totalitarian terror incapable of voicing their
dissent from Nazi policies’ (Kershaw 2008: 140),
there was an implicit recognition embedded in this
explanatory framework that Germans had some
degree of awareness of what was being enacted
against the Jews of Germany and later the Jews
of Europe. However, the extent to which students
themselves acknowledged and addressed
this varied.
Students of all ages, but particularly younger
students in Years 7 to 11 often believed that the
German people acted either as bystanders or
collaborators because they were paralysed by
‘fear’. The use of the word ‘fear’ or associated words
such as ‘frightened’ or ‘scared’ proved a dominant
feature of all interviews, as evidenced by the following
indicative student remarks:
I think if they were forced into it, it showed like
that they were really, really scared of Hitler and of
what he could do to them if they didn’t do what
he wanted (Candice, Year 8, LON6).
They were probably scared that he would
do something if they didn’t follow his path
(Charlotte, Year 8, LON5).
I think it would be very difficult for an ordinary
German person to stand up [to Hitler]. Even all of
them to do it at once would be very difficult
(Lachlan, Year 10, EE1).
They didn’t really have a choice so if like one or two
people didn’t really vote for Hitler and everyone else
did then he would just get rid of them because that
wouldn’t be helping his country and all he really
wants is to make the country better again (Kristy,
Year 9, LON6).
I think many of them did it out of fear of going
against him and not knowing what would happen
to them … so they were acting out of fear (Juliette,
Year 9, LON5).
As these selected quotes illustrate, the repeated
emphasis on ‘fear’ as an explanatory factor
dominated many interviews. Furthermore, the
interviews also revealed a strong sense that this fear
and terror was personified in the character of Adolf
Hitler. It was evident that the tendency to see fear
through a ‘Hitler-centric’ lens was prominent among
younger pupils, but a number of students in Years 12
and 13 also shared this perspective:
It speaks for how powerful Hitler must have been as
a person, they must have been in absolute fear of
him, they mustn’t have wanted to put a foot wrong,
and it shows that Hitler as a person had reached
that level in Germany where if you went against him
there was no going back for you. And I think that’s
where he had complete reign over the nation (Kadir,
Year 13, LON3).
If the people didn’t follow his orders they would
be treated the same way as the Jews, forced
into labour camps or shot dead
(Harrison, Year 12, LON3).
To further emphasise the existence of a repressive
climate of fear and intimidation under Nazi rule,
student explanations also broadened to suggest that
anyone who did not support the regime would face
severe consequences. For example, Nina (Year 9,
LON5) said they ‘were scared that if they had a family
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