What do students know and understand about the Holocaust?

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Collective conceptions of the Holocaust
Location
References to location were prioritised even
more infrequently in students’ descriptions of the
Holocaust. They also tended to be somewhat
limited in terms of specific content. As Figure 3.10
illustrates, where reference was made to a specific
named country – or set of countries – this was
almost exclusively restricted to Germany or ‘Nazi
Germany’ (734 individual references) and, to a far
lesser extent, to Poland (51 references). However,
a number of more generalised references to
‘occupied’, ‘surrounding’ or ‘neighbouring’ countries
were also made.
The Holocaust was placed within Europe or
described as European in 151 individual references,
while approximately 60 students described or
implied that Hitler and/or the Nazis ultimately wanted
to exterminate Jews worldwide. Again, students’
understanding of the location of the Holocaust
appears to be very closely related to and dependent
upon their understanding of the location of the
Second World War. Although Germany was again
the very clear focus of such understanding, there
was significant recognition that Hitler (and/or the
Nazis) ‘invaded’, ‘took control of’ or otherwise
‘occupied’ other, largely unnamed, countries and
that the Holocaust was in some way – albeit often
vaguely or imprecisely – connected to these
places too.
Causes
Students were not directly asked to identify any
possible or probable cause of the Holocaust in their
short descriptions. However, close examination of the
subsample of responses coded for form and content
suggest that approximately 11 per cent of students
across all age groups nonetheless chose to.
Figure 3.11 summarises the most commonly
occurring words and phrases across all 6,094
responses where students explicitly articulated,
implicitly suggested or otherwise invoked any
reasons behind the events they described.
Although this is not captured in Figure 3.11,
the central figure of Adolf Hitler is once again
profoundly important here. Just as Hitler, the Nazis,
and occasionally, ‘the Germans’ were identified
as the primary if not exclusive agents behind the
actions prioritised by students in Figure 3.5, he and
they stand behind many if not all of the ‘causes’
or ‘explanations’ summarised in Figure 3.11 and
illustrated through specific examples of responses
given in answer to survey question 30:
The Holocaust was the germans killing Jews
because Hitler didn’t agree with their religion and
thought it was the Jews fault that they lost first
world war. (Year 10 student).
The Holocaust was caused by a German man
named Adolf Hitler. He hated jewish people because
what they believed was different so he killed nearly
every Jew. (Year 10 student).
The holocaust was the mass murdering of all Jews
due to the fact that Hitler used them as scapegoats
and blamed them for everything that went wrong in
Germany (Year 9 student).
The holocaust was when Hitler decided to ‘get rid’
of all the jews because he blamed them for the
downfall in Germany’s economy after the war
(Year 10 student).
It was when the germans discriminated the Jews
because they were Jews and Hitler didn’t like them
for some reason so he made a concentration camp
and put all the jews in it (Year 8 student).
The Holocaust is where Adolf Hitler wanted to
create a super race by eliminating people like Jews
(Year 10 student).
It was about war against the jews. Hitler caused all
of it. He wanted a world without jews (Year 9).
As is also evident in the examples above, the
reasons that students included were often somewhat
thin, scarcely constituting ‘explanation’ at all. A
number were tautological, as, for example, on 34
separate occasions where students offered an
explanation along the lines, ‘Jewish people were
killed or persecuted because they were Jews’.
It is once again important to remember the
methodological point that students had been asked
to describe rather than to explain. It is nonetheless
striking how few students provided any real rationale
for Hitler or the Nazis’ hatred of the Jews. Instead
this was presented as though itself an explanation
– that is, the Holocaust happened because Hitler
and/or the Nazis did not like the Jews – rather than
something in need of explanation in its own right. The
impression given of most students’ understanding
here, is that the Holocaust was a consequence
almost exclusively of Hitler and the Nazi Party’s
personal beliefs or desires, choices or fears.
In some cases, such choices were presented as
almost arbitrary. Thirty-five students suggested there
was ‘no reason’ for the perpetrators’ actions, while
one Year 9 student explained:
‘The Holocaust was when Hitler picked one religion
(the Jews) to target. They were shot, gassed in
concentration camps and slaved (emphasis added).