Discussion
Twice this week I have been shocked and speechless. 2 people I have spoken to this week, one 19 the other mid fifties did not know what the holocaust was?
Just had no clue, one thought it was a reference to the dropping of the Atomic Bomb on japan!
Unbelievable how someone can go through life and have no clue about such a significant event in history.
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Stuart
Just had no clue, one thought it was a reference to the dropping of the Atomic Bomb on japan!
Unbelievable how someone can go through life and have no clue about such a significant event in history.
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Stuart
I agree in principle, but truth is it happened quite a long time ago and today's generation need not know the gory details.
There are probably recorded genocides of similar calibrer in history past, but we don't know about them because they have passed the boundary of human interest.
Most of the people who were old enough to remember the Holocaust don't have a whole lot of time left, and once they leave us it will die a natural death and be relegated to historical text books and encyclopaedias. Not overnight of course, but soon enough.
Everyone knows 9/11. Sixty years from now, not everyone will.
Time goes on.
(I by the way have a huge interest in the Holocaust and Nazi racial ideology!)
There are probably recorded genocides of similar calibrer in history past, but we don't know about them because they have passed the boundary of human interest.
Most of the people who were old enough to remember the Holocaust don't have a whole lot of time left, and once they leave us it will die a natural death and be relegated to historical text books and encyclopaedias. Not overnight of course, but soon enough.
Everyone knows 9/11. Sixty years from now, not everyone will.
Time goes on.
(I by the way have a huge interest in the Holocaust and Nazi racial ideology!)
bad_roo said:I've never heard of it.
Not one person on my wife's degree course had ever heard of El Alamein.
I was astonished. A lot.
I just Googled it and apparently it's one of the decisive victories of WWII.
Exactly how many "decisive victories" are there, and I wonder if we are obliged to know them all? D-Day is the most popular in British knowledge, followed by Stalingrad and then I think Bastogne.
El Alamein? Sorry, don't have a clue.
bad_roo said:
Not one person on my wife's degree course had ever heard of El Alamein.
I was astonished. A lot.
Shocking really when you consider they are supposedly the 'educated' elite of their generation.
The problem is that history teaching nowadays is diabolical. Henry the VIII, the Nazis and 'empathising' with medieval peasants is the sum total of most history teaching these days.
mr_tony said:
I imagine most people here have already forgotten the genocide in Rwanda - thats a ten year timescale - hundreds of thousands if not millions were killed becuase of their ethnic background.
- Also the "ethnic cleansing" in the former Yugoslavia would be history gathering dust were in not for the sudden interest in Radko Mladic's possible arrest. 8000 men and boys from one small town wasn't it? How many more that never got reported? TBH, it isn't the fact that some people are ignorant of history's great events that bothers me. I despair that there are people out there who know what happened and are prepared to do exactly the same. And that the world is still prepared to let them do it. In full view of the world's press. In Europe. And the UN troops made no attempt to stop it happening. THAT is really what makes me despair of humanity.
cazzer said:Which ain't really a bad thing - even if things are reinforced by movies of questionable historical accuracy (or indeed by constant reminders in American textbooks and speeches), I'm pleased that at least the events are remembered.
Sad thing is, bet they all knew Pearl Harbour.
You can't blame people for being intellectual lemmings and buying into popular culture at the expense of things like historical knowledge - but you can applaud those who seek to inform these lemmings of key historical events.
If our kids don't know of Winston Churchill because we've failed to present him in a cool enough manner, then well, our loss.
Fair play to Pearl Harbo(u)r.
Rudi (24 year old Malaysian)
Deadlock I think you are missing a bit of a point.
Several million people were killed in the Holocaust.
There is nothing vaguely comparable. 9/11 is not a relevant example.
The nearest I know of is Rwanda in which around 800000 people were killed if memory serves me correctly. This is more notable because it ws in such a short space of time (a couple of months intensive slaughtering)
Unforgivably this will be forgotten as it was in Africa thus for some reason is not important for us to know or learn about
Anyway my point is that I agree with the poster that it is unforgivable that there are adults who do not know about this sort of thing.
We should learn lessons from it and we should care!
Several million people were killed in the Holocaust.
There is nothing vaguely comparable. 9/11 is not a relevant example.
The nearest I know of is Rwanda in which around 800000 people were killed if memory serves me correctly. This is more notable because it ws in such a short space of time (a couple of months intensive slaughtering)
Unforgivably this will be forgotten as it was in Africa thus for some reason is not important for us to know or learn about
Anyway my point is that I agree with the poster that it is unforgivable that there are adults who do not know about this sort of thing.
We should learn lessons from it and we should care!
blindswelledrat said:Fair enough.
Deadlock I think you are missing a bit of a point.
Several million people were killed in the Holocaust.
There is nothing vaguely comparable. 9/11 is not a relevant example.
The nearest I know of is Rwanda in which around 800000 people were killed if memory serves me correctly. This is more notable because it ws in such a short space of time (a couple of months intensive slaughtering)
Unforgivably this will be forgotten as it was in Africa thus for some reason is not important for us to know or learn about
Anyway my point is that I agree with the poster that it is unforgivable that there are adults who do not know about this sort of thing.
We should learn lessons from it and we should care!
The basic message of the Holocaust was not in the number of people killed - it is the institutionalized evolution of resentment which lead to a state-sanctioned policy of mechanized murder. The numbers are only huge because it went on for so long. The principle though, of institutionalized genocide, is by no means unique to the Holocaust.
It is just the one that hits closest to home.
But we forget Rwanda, the Russians during WWII (though not ethnic genocide killed more innocent people than the Nazis ever gassed), China, Vietnam etc.
It just really isn't all that special.
blindswelledrat said:
Deadlock I think you are missing a bit of a point.
Several million people were killed in the Holocaust.
There is nothing vaguely comparable.
These are the figures, courtesy of National Geographic. The 'holocaust' was by no means the largest genocide.
Nazis - killed 6 million Jews, and
3 million soviet POWs
2 million Poles
400,000 other 'undesirables'
Mao - killed 30 million Chinese
Soviets - killed 20 million of their own citizens
Khymer Rouge - killed 1.7 million Cambodians
Rwandan Hutus - killed 800,000 Rwandan Tutsis
blindswelledrat said:
Deadlock I think you are missing a bit of a point.
Several million people were killed in the Holocaust.
There is nothing vaguely comparable.
I disagree. The estimates for deaths in the Soviet Union due to Stalins pogroms range from the 10-20 million mark. Mao Zedong's regime in China scores even higher with estimates of up to 5O million deaths.
I think if you asked most people in the street about these events they wouldnt have a clue.
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