What do students know and understand about the Holocaust?

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Who were the perpetrators and who was responsible?
maybe Hitler would kill their family or something’.
Another student reasoned that if they intervened to
help the Jews they would probably ‘get killed or their
family would get killed’ (John, Year 9, EE1). A similar
point was made by Rachael (Year 10, LON6), who
declared that they were scared of ‘what he could do
to them because, like, he could just send someone
to kill them … I think they were just scared’.
Such comments were not only limited to younger
students, as several students in Years 12 and 13
shared the view of Nikki (Year 13, EE1), who said,
‘I reckon if you stood up to the Nazis you would’ve
been killed yourself’.
In light of the comments above it is perhaps not
surprising that a number of students argued that
the German people remained obedient or loyal to
the Nazis due to an instinct for self-preservation. In
this sense, of course, fear and self-preservation are
very much linked. As one student said, ‘Sometimes
people just joined the Nazis just because they did
not want to go through what the Jews were going
through’ (Rob, Year 9, EE1). Other students noted
that the German people often were ‘bystanders’
because ‘they were afraid to speak up or to do
something’ (Fahima, Year 10, LON5). Meanwhile,
Lucas (Year 12, LON7) reasoned, ‘fear is one of
the determining things that would make people
Nazis, because if you are asked … are you a Nazi?
Or do you support Hitler? You’d almost have to
answer, “yes” for your own safety’. Interestingly, in a
moment of critical self-reflection, one student further
reasoned, ‘If I was in that time I probably would have
been afraid to like say something about it or stop it,
I don’t know’ (Aaliyah, Year 10, LON5).
A number of students did recognise that there
were people in German society who opposed Hitler.
However, as the following three comments illustrate,
they also subscribed to the view that repression
and fear prevented them from acting in any
significant ways:
Some people, like, really, really believed Hitler was a
bad man, like they believed that he was completely
wrong and they would have felt like they had to
protect the Jews, but there were just some people
who were so terrified of the consequences if they
did (Annie, Year 10, NE1).
Sometimes they were pressured into [attacking
Jews] so they might not have wanted to but
sometimes they did. So, like, there might be some
Nazis who didn’t want to be Nazis and were either
pressured into it or forced into it (Alice, Year 9, NE1).
I mean they [German people] probably have
a conscience, like they don’t want to do this
[persecute and murder Jews], but they must
have been scared out of their pants (Amanda,
Year 9, LON6).
Of significance, some students reasoned that the
German people were themselves ‘victims’ of Nazi
oppression. As one student explained, ‘I feel sorry for
some of them, because some of them were maybe
forced to [follow] Hitler’s orders’ (Lara, Year 9, SE1).
Another student argued that you really couldn’t
blame the German people or see them as evil as
they were like ‘slaves’ following Nazi directives
without question:
But if you know what you are doing, like, then, yes,
you are evil but if you are not, like, not really sure, if
you are just really scared, you can’t call them evil.
Like if they are doing it out of fear or they don’t
know what they are doing, if they are, like, in the
wrong state of mind then you can’t really call them
evil (Samantha, Year 10, NE1).
They’re almost like … you’d say like … you might
almost say they’re like slaves because they are
literally just killing people for him. Because it’s
whatever he says they do, because otherwise it’s,
like, they die almost (Hannah, Year 9, EE1).
What was clearly evident in all the interviews was
the belief that, due to fear, terror or intimidation,
ordinary German people had very little choice or
agency. In this context, most students believed that
the German people could not be held responsible
or blamed for the devastation of the Holocaust.
Rather, the responsibility and blame was firmly
attributed to Hitler and a core group of leading Nazis.
This overarching perspective is neatly summarised
in the following observation by a Year 9 student
who reasoned, ‘They probably felt quite scared to
stand up for themselves. There was a small group
of people that were probably supporting him, but
the others were just based on fear’ (Catherine, Year
9, EE1). In other words, this student, along with
the majority of other younger students interviewed
believed that most German people did not overtly
support Hitler and the Nazis, but were nevertheless
compelled to support their actions because they
were afraid of the consequences.
This sense of an overtly oppressed society in
which fear was a dominant force and individuals
had little choice or agency was a perspective often
repeated in interview with students of all ages.
For example, Dameer (Year 12, LON3) argued:
And if you are a soldier and you have these orders
and you don’t do them you don’t want to be
branded a traitor by your country, and probably just
get into as bad a situation as the Jews were. I don’t
know, were the traitors like shot, or were they put in
camps as well?