What do students know and understand about the Holocaust?

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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