What do students know and understand about the Holocaust?

When and where did the Holocaust take place?
193
The focus-group interviews with students from
Years 7 to 11 also contained a number of references
to ‘the ghettos’. When mentioned, students were
seemingly confident in talking about and describing
both features of ghettos and characteristics of living
within them. ‘Really like dirty and stuff’ (Natalie, Year
9, LON6); ‘unsanitized places’ (Kayley, Year 9, SE1);
‘where conditions were bad and stuff’ (Ian, Year 10,
SE1) were remarks made by students across the
age ranges. Some referred directly or indirectly to
ghettos being isolated or physically separated from
other parts of a town or city, saying that they ‘were
away from everybody’ (Bianca, Year 10, SE1). Others
noted how ‘there wasn’t much for them [the Jews] to
do and then lots of them starved and died’ (Jacob,
Year 9, SE1), although this same exchange with Year
9 students also saw the implication that ghettos
differed from concentration camps because ‘in the
ghetto they all lived there’ (Jacob, Year 9, SE1).
However, when asked for more details about
ghettos – where they were located, for instance –
students appeared less assured. Carrie (Year 10,
EE1) conceded, ‘I don’t know’ and Paige (Year 10,
EE1) was unsure of whether ghettos were in cities
and villages, while Danielle (Year 9, LON6) positioned
ghettos ‘in the ruins of Germany, the dirty parts
where no-one goes’.
The inability to geographically locate ghettos
was accompanied by little or no remark about
ghettoisation in terms of its relation to the
development of anti-Jewish policy; as Jacob
(Year 9, SE1) put it, ‘they built ghettos for them
to stay in then they were moved out to the
concentration camps’. There were a couple of
exceptions where students attempted to construct
explanations, for example: ‘I don’t think Hitler wanted
them near him almost. So he wanted them … so
he put them in ghettos on the outside of things’
(Hannah, Year 9, EE1). Overall, while many students
associated ghettos with unpleasant and harsh
living conditions, the impression given by student
interviews is that students’ knowledge of the ghetto
system was typically fragmented and somewhat
shallow and that significant misconceptions exist.
In contrast, those students studying history in Year
12 and Year 13 had a more developed understanding
of ghettos. For example, one Year 12 group
recognised that ghettos were established ‘mainly in
Poland’ and were ‘just sort of Jewish communities
that were, liked, boxed in and contained … where
Jews were not allowed to leave, and they were run
in a military way by the SS’ (Alex, Year 12, EE1).
‘The most famous one [ghetto] was in Warsaw in
Poland,’ Phil (Year 12, LON7) said. ‘I don’t think they
are sort of camps, but it’s more sort of things like
curfews and segregation of living and things like that,
in specific areas.’
Older students were also more likely to provide
reasonably accurate detail about the conditions
in ghettos than their younger counterparts.
For example, students in Years 12 and 13 often
understood that conditions in the Polish ghettos
became murderous and that many Jews ‘died
through starvation, malnutrition’ and ‘disease’
(Cassie, Year 13, EE1).
A number of students in Years 12 and 13 also
Figure 7.6 Student responses to survey question 58, ‘Beginning in October 1939, the Nazis created
ghettos. What were Nazi ghettos?’ (percentage by year group)
Percentage of students
100
90
80
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
Where Jews killed
in gas chambers
Parts of town Jews
forced to live
Housing estates
built for Roma
Factories for slave
labourers
Where gay men
experimented on
■ Year 7 ■ Year 8 ■ Year 9 ■ Year 10 ■ Year 11 ■ Year 12 ■ Year 13
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