What do students know and understand about the Holocaust?

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Who were the perpetrators and who was responsible? 165 concentration camps and the torture (Sabir, Year 10, EE1). They just … they didn’t know it was happening (Sabir, Year 10, EE1). Hitler didn’t make it as blatant … Perhaps it wasn’t widely known that these events were happening (Fadil, Year 13, LON3). I’m not saying they [the German people] are not at fault but I’m saying I doubt that they knew they [the Jews] were being shipped off to death camps [and] being killed, they probably didn’t know (Jake, Year 12, LON7). Many students also reasoned that ordinary Germans were unaware of the extreme horrors of the Holocaust because the mass killings were carried out in remote locations, often erroneously placed within Germany: Interviewer: So what about the rest of the German population? Nina: Yes they probably didn’t know about it. That is what I learned in history that some of them were like unaware… Chloe: Yes that’s true, because Auschwitz was actually hidden from everybody in the more outskirts, not the outskirts … but in a small area of Germany so… Juliette: In the countryside. Chloe: Yes in the countryside, so nobody actually knew about it. So I guess half the population didn’t know (Year 9, LON5). Although the view that the German people were ignorant of the Holocaust was more pronounced among younger students, a significant number of students in Years 12 and 13 also subscribed to the belief that the German people were typically unaware of the systematic mass killing of Jews and other victims groups. Thus, although several older students argued that the German people knew about Nazi discriminatory policy and acts against the Jews, most reasoned that the Germans were often not familiar with the systematic extermination of Jews because they occurred in lands beyond Germany. As Jack (Year 12, EE1) commented: I don’t think they [the German people] realised the full extent, I think they knew that there was obviously discrimination, the German people, if they did see a Jew they would be mean to them … but I don’t think they realised, recognised, the full extent of what would actually happen to the people in the concentration camps, because they weren’t all in Germany. There is no doubt that the Nazi regime wanted to ensure that mass murder did not become common knowledge. As Breitman (1996: 71) points out, ‘secrecy was essential for the Final Solution, but it went beyond that; it was Hitler’s and Himmler’s general style of operation’. The Nazi elite, for instance, was of the belief that ‘a good many Germans … were still shackled by Christian morality and, until their re-education was complete, the grand scheme could not be uncovered’ (Bankier 2002: 44–5). And yet there was, as Bankier goes on to say, the ‘paradox’ that ‘the extermination of the Jews was publicized in declarations printed in the Nazi press and announced over German radio’. At the same time, those living in the vicinity of the death camps were only too aware of their function, as were passers-by: as Mark Mazower (2008: 384–5) notes, ‘passengers on the Lviv-Lublin railway could smell the Belzec camp hidden behind the pine trees and talked to one another openly about the bodies starting to rot’. In truth, then, the reality was that if the Holocaust was ever wrapped in a shroud of secrecy, this garb quickly fell away. As it did, the distance between Germany and the loci of the killing was not necessarily a barrier for knowledge; thanks to word of mouth, personal correspondence and various other means, ‘knowledge of the fate of the Jews’ was ‘widespread’ – though as Kershaw (2008: 225) cautions, ‘demonstrating what attitudes followed from the knowledge’ is ‘less straightforward’. The second prevalent assumption among students was the belief that the Nazis used propaganda as a means to camouflage Nazi actions against the Jews and others. Notably, many students appeared to be influenced by a fictitious scene in the film The Boy in Striped Pyjamas in which the German protagonists were shown a propaganda film that depicted life in the camps as pleasant and comfortable. Seemingly, many students accepted this as evidence that the German people were duped into believing that the Jews were often well treated. Kristy (Year 9, LON6) noted, for example: I think they had the videos as well, because like in The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas they were watching, like, a video and it is like a picture of a camp that Jewish people can go to … and it is like a holiday camp that is what it looked like. So I don’t think they knew the extent … of how extreme the camps were or how bad they were. The following exchange between students in Year 10 (EE1) similarly shows how many students believed that German people were ignorant of the fact that innocent Jews were slaughtered en masse: Sabir: They knew that there were Jews going to www.ioe.ac.uk/holocaust
166 Who were the perpetrators and who was responsible? live somewhere else, but they didn’t know where that was or what it was like. In fact they were shown films where it was quite happy so they were happy for it … the German people. Interviewer: So in a sense they sort of bought into it. They knew about it at some level. Sabir: Yeah … but not the extent. Not the mass murder. Interestingly, a number of students in Years 12 and 13 argued that the German people could not have known about the extreme consequences of the Holocaust or they would have acted differently, possibly even spoken out against it. This view is captured in the following comments of students from Years 13 and 9: There was propaganda that said they were taking them to holiday camps, so obviously they [the German people] didn’t know that they were going to be gassed at the time that they were denouncing them, so if they’d realised how immoral it was they might have acted differently (Amelia, Year 13, EE1). I’ve always assumed they didn’t know […] Because I feel like they couldn’t have known, I feel like it couldn’t have happened if people had known what was going on (Sally, Year 13, EE1). …if they had known what was going on in Auschwitz I’m sure they would have done something (Chloe, Year 9, LON5). Other students shared in this sense of incredulity, typically arguing that if the German people knew more about the mass killing, ‘I don’t think it would have been allowed to happen’ (Sally, Year 13, EE1) or, as one Year 13 student put it, ‘if they’d known the extent of the immorality that was going to be committed a lot of people would have refrained from joining in’ (Amelia, Year 13, EE1). Large numbers of students interviewed exhibited the strongly held belief that the ordinary German person would have been horrified if they knew the true scope and scale of the Nazi Holocaust. Accordingly, Samad (Year 12, LON3) reasoned, ‘I don’t think they would have supported Hitler directly if they knew his true intentions’. In a similar vein, one Year 9 student asserted that the German people were shocked when they eventually found out about the extreme nature of the persecution and murder. When asked if the German people knew about the mass killing, he candidly announced: ‘No. I think people freaked out when they heard about it’ (Anthony, Year 9, SE1). Once again, what these comments revealed is that many young people were unaware of key historical scholarship which provides powerful and illuminating evidence of what people in Germany and elsewhere knew about the Holocaust. It is, of course, perhaps unrealistic to suggest that students should read historical tomes but, at the very least, it is reasonable to expect that key evidence emanating from historical scholarship should be made accessible to young people. Essentially, the historical record shows that people in Germany and other countries did know about the Holocaust and most either stood by and/or collaborated. Crucially, very few resisted. Directly related to the point above, it was noticeable that very few students held the view that the German people were aware of the unfolding genocide and should accept some responsibility for its implementation. Indeed, the following comments from two Year 12 students appeared as rare examples of such a perspective: Many of them [German people] must have realised that something was going on, I think the disappearance of whole groups of people, in the area around Germany, I think, and for them to constantly continue to support the Nazi Party they are maybe not intentionally but they are essentially supporting and therefore are like collaborators of the Holocaust (Jeremy, Year 12, LON7). …you could put some blame on, you know, the German people, because they sorted of elected the Nazi Party and … a lot of people knew it was happening, at least there was a lot of discrimination towards the Jews, even if they didn’t entirely condone the complete extermination (Alex, Year 12, EE1). Other students, however, were more reluctant to attribute blame to the German people, instead suggesting that at worst the German people were ‘kind of complacent’. As Paul (Year 12, LON7) argued: ‘I think if we are going to charge them [the German people] with anything it would probably be complacency, because regardless of why they did it they still let it happen, and they still elected Hitler’. Despite these rare examples of students suggesting that ordinary Germans did know about the Holocaust and, in consequence, that they must accept some responsibility for its devastation, most students across all ages held a completely different view. For example, many students reasoned that, due to deceptive propaganda or the fact that mass killing was carried out in remote locations, the German people were unaware of the Nazis’ crimes against the Jews. Indeed, several students reasoned – as illustrated above – that if the German people had known, they would surely have acted to prevent the Holocaust from happening. More typically students across all ages asserted that, while ordinary people may have known about general prejudice against the Jews, very few knew about the enormity
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CENTRE FOR HOLOCAUST EDUCATION What
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What do students know and understan
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iv About the UCL Centre for Holocau
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vi Foreword by Sir Peter Bazalgette
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viii Foreword by Professor Yehuda B
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2 Executive summary ■■ Many stu
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Olivia Hemingway, 2014
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8 Introduction ■■ What forms of
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10 Introduction the fate of the Jew
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12 Introduction two reasons here in
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14 Introduction Figure 1.1 Variatio
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16 Introduction Holocaust are never
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18 Introduction ■■ the inclusio
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20 Introduction ■■ The chapter
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24 Methodology Of particular note w
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26 Methodology were asked questions
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28 Methodology Vocabulary test We e
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30 Methodology Table 2.2 Breakdown
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32 Methodology Focus group details
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34 Methodology How were the focus-g
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38 Collective conceptions of the Ho
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72 Encountering representations of
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102 Preface often socially construc
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Emile Holba, 2014
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106 Who were the victims? students
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108 Who were the victims? Figure 5.
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110 Who were the victims? statement
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112 Who were the victims? first ins
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216 Considerations and recommendati
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Appendix 1: The Survey 225 Appendix
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Appendix 1: The Survey 227 How do y
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Appendix 1: The Survey 229 Word qui
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Appendix 1: The Survey 231 Explorin
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Appendix 1: The Survey 233 Do you r
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Appendix 1: The Survey 235 42. Who
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Appendix 1: The Survey 237 The Nazi
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Appendix 1: The Survey 239 64. What
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Appendix 1: The Survey 241 71. If y
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Appendix 1: The Survey 243 Returnin
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Appendix 1: The Survey 245 87. Have
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Appendix 2: Attitudinal scales used
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Appendix 3: Coding frameworks for f
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Appendix 3: Coding frameworks for f
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Appendix 4: Schools that participat
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Appendix 5: Schools that participat
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Appendix 6: Multiple regression ana
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References 259 Assmann, A. (2010)
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References 261 Carr, E.H. (1964) Wh
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References 263 Emler, N. and Ohana,
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References 265 Howitt, D. and Crame
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References 267 Levstik, L.S. (2000)
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References 269 Resnick, L.B. (1989)
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References 271 Snyder, T. (2009)
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References 273 Yeager, E., Anderson
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Centre for Holocaust Education UCL
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What do students know and understand about the Holocaust?

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