One in two young Germans don't know 'Holocaust'

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vern humphrey:
How many Japanese under the age of 75 have any inkling of what atrocities Japan perpetrated in WWII?
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I would say very few. I myself was shocked when Japan came out recently and apologized for their atrocities committed against the Chinese.
 
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wabrams:
I would say very few. I myself was shocked when Japan came out recently and apologized for their atrocities committed against the Chinese.
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I may have told this before – when I worked in Singapore in '94 and '95, the Straits Times printed translated excerpts from the Mainland Chinese press about the war as part of the 50th Anniversary coverage. What the Japanese did in China matches anything the Nazis did.

Interestingly enough, a Japanese living in Singapore protested. He said he had been taken prisoner at the end of the war and forced to work for the British in Singapore and sent a picture to prove it.

The Straits Times printed his letter and his picture – which showed a group of healthy, smiling young Japanese with their shirts off. Right next to it they printed a picture of starved and beaten Australian POWs of the Japanese.
 
vern humphrey:
I may have told this before – when I worked in Singapore in '94 and '95, the Straits Times printed translated excerpts from the Mainland Chinese press about the war as part of the 50th Anniversary coverage. What the Japanese did in China matches anything the Nazis did.

Interestingly enough, a Japanese living in Singapore protested. He said he had been taken prisoner at the end of the war and forced to work for the British in Singapore and sent a picture to prove it.

The Straits Times printed his letter and his picture – which showed a group of healthy, smiling young Japanese with their shirts off. Right next to it they printed a picture of starved and beaten Australian POWs of the Japanese.
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I remember reading not too long ago about the Japanese atrocities. The more you read about it, the less evil the Nazi’s seemed compared to the Japanese. Their actions reminded me a lot of the Khan’s from the 1200’s.
 
And this is why it is SO important that the Pope is from Germany. You can’t hide from history when it is front of your face. His past will help teach and hopeful help heal the germany people.
 
Many citizens are ignorant about the wrongs their country has done. Makes sense that their own countries would not adamantly remind their citizens of whatever atrocities or wrongs are committed. One can say the same for any country in the world. Sad, but true…
 
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jdnation:
Many citizens are ignorant about the wrongs their country has done. Makes sense that their own countries would not adamantly remind their citizens of whatever atrocities or wrongs are committed. One can say the same for any country in the world. Sad, but true…
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I think the U.S. must be an exception to this rule. I swear a day doesn’t go by that I am not reminded by someone what a “horrible” country the U.S. is. We had slavery, we had segration, we worked Chinese immigrants to death on the railroads, we committed genocide on the native Indians, we interred Japanese Americans during WWII , we had McCarthyism… blah, blah, blah. It is a never-ending drumbeat of self-hatred I wouldn’t wish on any people or nation. Someday I’m gonna hear someone say something nice about my country and I’m going to drop dead from the shock. :bigyikes:
 
If you look at history everyone’s ancestors have probably wronged someone and been wronged by someone else.

While never forgetting is fine in principal it is not a good thing to sit around cataloging the sins of the fathers. frankly there are other things to do

As for some Germans under 24 not knowing an English language term for events that occurred when their grandparents were children, that is hardly surprising

While I love history I find most people don’t share this passion and tend to look at me funny when I supply a little too much detail. 😉
 
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Chickamauga:
I think the U.S. must be an exception to this rule. I swear a day doesn’t go by that I am not reminded by someone what a “horrible” country the U.S. is. We had slavery, we had segration, we worked Chinese immigrants to death on the railroads, we committed genocide on the native Indians, we interred Japanese Americans during WWII , we had McCarthyism… blah, blah, blah. It is a never-ending drumbeat of self-hatred
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Self-hatred or actual history? It seems that you are only listing things that actually happened.

BTW, most American young people are equally ignorant of our history. Most have never heard of the Vietnam War, e.g.
 
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Richardols:
Most have never heard of the Vietnam War, e.g.
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Evidence?

The terrible war of Vietnam and how rotten the US was is taught in every high school that I know of.
 
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Richardols:
Self-hatred or actual history? It seems that you are only listing things that actually happened.

BTW, most American young people are equally ignorant of our history. Most have never heard of the Vietnam War, e.g.
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I don’t know that I’d say most, but perhaps a good number are ignorant. The friends I held throughout my years in school all were very well acquainted with the Vietnam War, Tiennamen Square, WW2, Korean War, Falklands, Serbia-Herzegovina - I mean, the twenty something age group I’m in just wasn’t allowed to ignore much at all. Perhaps recent teenagers who haven’t been exposed to world history lessons aren’t so in tune with the past - but I can bet assuredly they’ll be more than informed not only by their schools, but by the aforementioned self-hatred that is prevalent today.

Aside from the extreme of self-hatred, the other side of the coin is that people like just forgetting about atrocities, and fail to teach younger citizens what has since passed. In Germany, I have noted from a friend who stayed here on exchange in the 90’s, it was still a bit of a taboo to talk about the Holocaust, nevermind even mentioning the word Nazi. They just didn’t learn much at all about it in school due to the great shame so freshly associated with it.

So, it’s up to all of us to discuss history, not just for us to learn it in a school format, or through the news, but to associate with people involved with global and local events, and get as much of a story as we can, when we can. Spread the seed of knowledge so that you don’t have people being ignorant of something that had its own equally shameful overtones, like the Vietnam war, or the Holocaust. If we educate those around us, then there won’t be an issue of it, will there?

(and by educate, I don’t mean beating it into someone’s head that they come from a bad country because x, y, and z happened there… a country is not only its leaders, but its citizens, as well. )
 
There have been many Holocausts throughout the history of mankind such as the Holocaust against Christians in Russia during Bolshevism (20 million killed). And Ghengas Khan (the Hitler of the East) who slaughtered millions of foreign race people who he believed were inferior, the Armenian Holocaust, America’s bombing of Dresden civilians and nuking of Japanese civilians (whether justified or not), and so forth.

Why should only one people get to use the title “The Holocaust”? This indicates that the suffering of other people are not as important. Plus, where are all the Hollywood movies showing sympathy for the Christian Holocaust? Why is this Holocaust not talked about in schools? Why do international politicians not have a day of mourning and so forth for these Christians, but only for the Jews? Why do we have a Martin Luther King Jr. Day, but not a Christian Holocaust remembrance day?

The above of course is just my own perspective, and others may have alternate perspectives.

Regards.
 
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Richardols:
Self-hatred or actual history? BTW, most American young people are equally ignorant of our history. Most have never heard of the Vietnam War, e.g.
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If the good is never mentioned then the picture is distored and incomplete. Very rarely does the media or educators tell about the good things this or any other nation does. Accentuating every negative aspect of an entire nation’s history becomes self-hatred when not balanced against the postive.

In our media and entertainment-driven society, with dozens of motion pictures that have been made about Vietnam over the past thirty years, to say that American young people, who spend more time watching television and movies than any previous generation, to suggest they have have never even heard of the Vietnam War is fallacious. They have heard of it, whether they realize it or not. How much they know about in detail is debateable, but I would speculate in our public schools they they have not learned anything worth retaining.
 
Asian Catholic:
There have been many Holocausts throughout the history of mankind such as the Holocaust against Christians in Russia during Bolshevism (20 million killed). And Ghengas Khan (the Hitler of the East) who slaughtered millions of foreign race people who he believed were inferior, the Armenian Holocaust, America’s bombing of Dresden civilians and nuking of Japanese civilians (whether justified or not), and so forth.

Why should only one people get to use the title “The Holocaust”? This indicates that the suffering of other people are not as important. Plus, where are all the Hollywood movies showing sympathy for the Christian Holocaust? Why is this Holocaust not talked about in schools? Why do international politicians not have a day of mourning and so forth for these Christians, but only for the Jews? Why do we have a Martin Luther King Jr. Day, but not a Christian Holocaust remembrance day?

The above of course is just my own perspective, and others may have alternate perspectives.

Regards.
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I think you need to get a little deeper into history.

Prior to the 20th Century, the greatest crime was Ceasar’s Gallic War, where he killed or enslaved about two million people (more than the entire population of Italy at the time.)

The great slaughter in Russia was the Collectivization Famine – from 5 to 7 million people were starved to death. Other crimes raised Stalin’s body count to more than Hitler’s, but the Holocaust was the largest single slaughter of humanity – about 12 million people (roughly half of whom were Jews.)

The genocide against the Armenians during WWI was much smaller – on the order of 1.5 million. The Killintg Fields of Cambodia somewhat larger, about 2 million.
 
I find it very hard to believe that half of German young adults arn’t familiar with what went on in WWII. Our culture is obsessed with it, and Europe is very into our cluture, meaning our entertainment industry. For that reason alone I find it hard to believe…of course, maybe I am midunderstanding the news story, and they just aren’t familiar with the term?
 
vern humphrey:
Other crimes raised Stalin’s body count to more than Hitler’s, but the Holocaust was the largest single slaughter of humanity – about 12 million people (roughly half of whom were Jews.)
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I’ll repost this quote from another thread:

home.comcast.net/~neoeugenics/nazis.htm
Overall, by genocide, the killing of hostages, reprisal raids, forced labor, ‘euthanasia,’ starvation, exposure, medical experiments, terror bombing, and in the concentration and death camps, the Nazis murdered from about 15,000,000 to over 31,600,000 people, most likely closer to 21 million men, women, handicapped, aged, sick, prisoners of war, forced laborers, camp inmates, critics, homosexuals, Jews, Slavs, Serbs, Czechs, Italians, Poles, Frenchmen, Ukrainians, etc." From Rummel’s “Death by Government”
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What is so interesting is the fact that Rummel includes a table showing who was slaughtered by the Nazis, and it includes 10.55 million Eastern Slavs (see “Resources Library” for Rummel’s site). One has to ask why over ten million Slavs have received almost no recognition for their suffering under the Nazis, but the Jews have? In fact, as Rummel points out, if asked, the average citizen only knows about Jews murdered in this century for the most part. Watching Western movies, documentaries, and the media in general the Holocaust of the Jews has been kept in the forefront while other people’s sufferings have been dismissed as not as relevant or even really all that important. It is not the place here for an analysis of this phenomena, except to bring to everyone’s attention that suffering is not restricted to one people or another. Over time, any people can become subject to totalitarian tyranny.
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Asian Catholic:
I’ll repost this quote from another thread:

home.comcast.net/~neoeugenics/nazis.htm
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The total deaths during WWII will never be fully known. In general, there were about 12 million documented deaths in the camps and related activities – which is usually what is meant when the work “Holocaust” is used.

There are many other crimes – if one were starting out to get a PhD in history, I’d recommend becoming a specialist in Japanese atrocities in China – it’s a completely ignored field.
 
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gilliam:
Evidence?

The terrible war of Vietnam and how rotten the US was is taught in every high school that I know of.
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A lot of high school students are getting one page of info on the Vietnam War nowadays. I’ve seen a couple of the text books and the military history in them is a joke. Most of the history being taught is social history.
 
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wabrams:
A lot of high school students are getting one page of info on the Vietnam War nowadays. I’ve seen a couple of the text books and the military history in them is a joke. Most of the history being taught is social history.
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When I taught at college level, the texts for the basic American History course were broken down into 20 year blocks. Each block divided into women, minorities, social and economic activities. Reading those texts, you’d barely know there was a Revolution or Civil War.
 
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