Lack of education about the Holocaust??

Question

I went to four high schools, and speak to many people from them and something occured to me. We have never been taught about the Holocaust! I'm finidhed high school and was never taught about it!! NONE of the people I know, know what it is, some have a vague idea though, alot of older people are the same. I am a history buff, who is a little obsessed withdifferent prejudice and things that have happened because of them. I was just wondering has anyone in Australia (where I am from) learnt about it? Or in any other countries did you learn about it at school? If you dont know what it is you can say so aswell. Thanks

Answer 1

We learned about it in the USA.  I am kind of surprised to hear that most people around you haven't heard about it.  We learned all about it and I've even taken a couple field trips to Holocaust museums.  Might be something you should bring up with your school board.  To be honest I'm not sure exactly how much involvement Australia had in WWII so that may be part of the reason.

Answer 2

The Holocaust was major event in the 20th century but it is often over emphasised to the detriment of other outrages such as the Turkish holocaust against the Armenians in 1915 or the carpet bombing of Vietnamese by the Americans in the 1970s.

We don't see many museums dedicated to those events.

Answer 3

I live in the USA (Massachusetts) and I can tell you that I learned about the Holocaust A LOT in high school. We read countless books and plays such as Anne Frank and Night that were about the Holocaust in English class. We also covered it briefly in American History during the WWII chapter. It was covered again in depth when I took AP European History - my class even took a weekend field trip to the Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C.

Actually I have never in my life heard of someone over around 10 years old who doesn't know what the Holocaust is.

*** Australia was involved in the war. It was one of the first countries to go to war with n**i Germany. 40,000 Australians died, including civilians from the Japanese bombing raids. What the h**l do they teach you in history class there? Anyway, it doesn't matter where you're from, being a human being on the planet Earth is enough that you should know about the Holocaust and World War II.

Answer 4

Where I come from our state was founded by many Germans almost .5 of my city's pop. went over to help the U.S. in the WW1 amd served faithfully so I guess they want to make sure that we know what our ancestors did during WW1.

It's the same over in the States we didn't really learn anything about your country except in Kindybeaner school when we learned about animals. It could be seeing that you guys weren't involved much in WW1 your head guys don't think the students "need" to know EVERYTHING about the Holocaust because it didn't affect Australia's history as bad as America's and Germany's but I think they're wrong about that 'cause everyone should have at least a good understanding about what Hitler did he actually sent our soldiers to the gas chambers while we were letting the Germans sleep in the hotels called POW camps. the reason why the Germans sent their POW's to the gas chambers is because they were getting so many so fast they didn't have many places to put them so they gased them up.  

Answer 5

I survived the Holocaust as a teenager. A few years ago, a Christian lady who had founded a Yahoo! group Remember_The_Holocaust asked me to manage ity as the moderator. I have made it a very informative site to learn not only about all the facets of the Holocaust history , but also decided to promote human rights and tolerance education through it. You are welcome to join. You would find it appropriateas it is  called ünequalled."It has now over 13,000 postings. By perusing past postigs , use the many features such as files, links, photos you will be able to understand more. Just go to  Yahoo! and find the group and you can join by clicking on Join. or you can  write to me at [e-mail] and I will send you an invitation to join. There are now 202 memebers located on 5 continents. Pnce a member , you can also contribute your comments, etc. I hope that you will join. In fact, there are at least a couple members from Australia in the group.

Answer 6

I am from Canada. In my high school career, it was covered a few times, during Canadian history, about WWII, and 20th century history. We watched Schindler's List as well. It seems like just one of those things you kind of know about, and you're not really sure when you learned it.

Answer 7

Australia had a very large (for its population) impact in WWII. Don't forget that they remained part of the British Empire - so, a lot of what Australian and other Commonwealth countries achieved is, of course, credited to England.

Perhaps, just guessing here, because you guys fought the Pacific War, your education stresses this as opposed to the War in Europe.

Trust me - it's not just Australia. Education is failing EVERYWHERE - by that I mean the U.S. and other "Western" countries. The ones who are prioritizing it are the Orientals - and guess who's ahead...

I think it's disgusting. I'm sick of hearing that they (the schools) just don't have the time, blah, blah, blah. Here, in the U.S., I blame the teacher's unions which allow guaranteed jobs for life, 9 months work, plus Christmas and Easter, out of the year for a heck of a lot of money once you're tenured - 3 years in this State. Once these teachers get that tenure, most of them just sit back and coast until they reap even larger rewards upon their retirement.

I'm for longer school days and longer school years. The calendar was set up in the 1800's when the kids were needed home to work the fields.

We are failing our children while they spend all their time playing video games, text messaging, talking on their cell 'phones and listening to their MP3's.

Japan and China will OWN us very soon.

The parents have to do a bit too...