What do students know and understand about the Holocaust?

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When and where did the Holocaust take place?
What do students know about when
the Holocaust happened and how it
developed?
Chronological parameters of the Holocaust
In order to establish a rudimentary benchmark of
students’ chronological knowledge of the Holocaust,
question 38 of the survey asked, ‘When did the
Holocaust happen?’ As Figure 7.1 illustrates most
students (68.5 per cent) correctly identified ‘in the
1940s’ as the answer.
Students’ correct responses improved with age.
Thus, whereas 55.3 per cent of Year 7 students
provided an accurate response, this rose to 90.5 per
cent in Year 13. However, while the number of
correct responses was generally strong among
most year groups, it is also important to note that
approximately one in five students in Years 7 to 9
(11 to 14 year olds) thought that the Holocaust
occurred in the 1920s.
Furthermore, while the survey findings suggest
that most students were able to identify the decade
in which the Holocaust took place, focus-group
interviews revealed that they typically found it difficult
to provide more accurate chronological detail.
Some students believed, for example, that the
Holocaust happened in ‘1936’ (Tim, Year 9, EE1)
or ‘1937’ (John, Year 9, EEI). One suggested it
happened in ‘1940’ when ‘Hitler constructed the
concentration camps’ (Alice, Year 11, NE1), while
another claimed it took place ‘alongside World War
II’ (Rachel, Year 10, LON6) and a group of Year
9 (SE1) students reasoned that ‘1918’ was the
significant starting point.
Of course, some justification can be made for
some of these ideas, but the interviews revealed that
most students did not have a secure understanding
of the chronological sweep of the Holocaust.
Indeed, when asked for a more specific date range,
even Lauren, the Year 10 student who recognised
the connection between the Holocaust and the
Second World War, tentatively offered, ‘Was it 1949
to 1954? I can’t remember exactly’. Typically, as
the two exchanges with Year 10 students below
demonstrate, students struggled to offer a precise
time frame for the Holocaust:
Interviewer: If we were creating a chronology – a time
line of the Holocaust – are there particular dates that we
would start and end, and would there be any kind
of key events between those dates?
Tom: Yes, but I’ve forgotten them.
All: Yes.
Sarah: I don’t think it was when the Second World War
began, I think it was earlier.
Daniel: I think it was 1942 maybe.
Tom: Yeah 41, 42, that sort of…
Sarah: It was in the middle.
Sarah: In the middle of the, like, war period
(Year 10, NE1).
Leah: I thought it was 1930 something.
Aaliyah: I thought it was 1941 maybe.
Holly: 1944.
Leah: 1940 I don’t know, something like that.
Interviewer: So we are saying the 30s and the 40s?
Aaliyah: It was, like, nearer to the end of the 30s.
Holly: Yeah, like nearer to the end of all this stuff
(Y10, LON5).
Figure 7.1 Student responses to survey question 38, ‘When did the Holocaust happen?’
(percentage by year group)
Percentage of students
100
90
80
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
In the 1900s In the 1920s In the 1940s In the 1960s In the 1980s
■ Year 7 ■ Year 8 ■ Year 9 ■ Year 10 ■ Year 11 ■ Year 12 ■ Year 13