Why we’re forgetting the Holocaust

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The poll, conducted by Claims Conference, a group that administers compensation and other services to Holocaust survivors, found that 40 percent of millennials couldn’t name a single death camp or ghetto. No Auschwitz, no Bergen-Belsen. And 31 percent of all Americans — and 41 percent of millennials — believe that fewer than 2 million Jews were killed in the Holocaust. The number is actually 6 million.

While we still use “millennials” as shorthand for young people, millennials currently range in age from mid-20s to late-30s. These are adults.

The shocked reaction to the survey is understandable but misguided. A 1993 study by the Jewish Telegraphic Agency found that “38 percent of adults and 53 percent of high-school students either said they ‘don’t know’ or offered completely incorrect answers” when asked to define the term “the Holocaust.”
 
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Oh my goodness this is horrifying that people are forgetting about this!
 
A while ago, I posted an article about how several of the concentration camps in Poland were rapidly decaying. More than a few people thought that they should be allowed to fall into ruin, or bulldozed. I was shocked. Mankind needs reminders of what this species is capable of. History repeats itself, etc.

Even with these reminders, these atrocities still take place, though on a much smaller scale. I would say NK his the high ranking offender. People tend to want to forget real life horror, but I think that is dangerous. At any rate, prepare yourself, the comments and arguments for forgetting the horrors of the past, they are sure to come, even here.

PS: Thousand and thousands of Catholics met their end in these camps. Dachau was the Nazis’s favorite for sending clergy, and the religious orders.
 
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Not sure this is true. Our Catholic school spent and entire semester on the Holocaust. So much so the students were having nightmares.

I recommend the Documentary " Paper Clips"
 
Perhaps Catholic schools are better at teaching these things. I’ve learned about the Holocaust in English and history classes in Catholic high school and middle school. We even covered the Russian Revolution and the horrors of Soviet Communism in the eighth grade with our discussion of Orwell’s Animal Farm.

If other schools are doing so poorly at teaching the Holocaust, I can imagine they barely cover atrocities committed by Communists and other totalitarians.
 
My apologies. I am very serious, and I am very concerned about this story.
 
I had to look up “Holodomor” to know what you were referring to. I was aware of the forced famine by the USSR in Ukraine, but I didn’t know it by that name.

I saw the article in yesterday’s Chicago Tribune about a significant number of millennials not knowing what Auschwitz was. So asked my 11 year old daughter if she knew. At first, she was reluctant to tell me, because she wasn’t sure - but then she said it had to do with WWII, and I said to her - that I think she knows it but is afraid of being wrong - so she said it was a concentration camp. (I don’t remember if she knew it was Poland or not)

So I told her she already knew more about it that 2/3 of millennials. Now, my 11 year old has a particular fascination with Anne Frank - and she has requested we watch various movies about that over the years. She has seen Schindler’s List, as well as other WWII movies. She was surprised that others would not know anything about that period - and she was shocked that there could be people who had not heard of the holocaust.
 
Because the liberal academics who make up the curriculum for High Schools and Elementary Schools no longer stress the importance of holocaust study. The plight of Jews is becoming an afterthought.

The holocaust is now equated with the lives of Palestinians in Israel for an entire generation of American school children.

Those who do not learn history are doomed to repeat it, and you can see it on college campuses across the US. Antisemitism is now almost acceptable in liberal academia. Read the comment section on any news site like MSNBC, Yahoo, or CNN. You will see countless comments that would have caused people to be shunned 20 years ago.

It is very sad.
 
Ask Americans what they know about the Cultural Revolution of China. History of the Soviet Union. Etc. - they probably know slightly more about the Shoah (aka the Holocaust). Americans are not well-educated, for the most part.
 
And yet we have some of the highest levels of education spending
 
I’ve heard from college professors that this is because a significant number of public schools are only focusing on US history as far back as the 1960s. Anything before the 1960s isn’t really getting covered to the detail it deserves.
 
My schools’ history classes always started from colonial times and always had to rush through the 1960s and beyond. I do not understand how you can understand America as it is now without covering its origins.
 
redbetta said:
My schools’ history classes always started from colonial times and always had to rush through the 1960s and beyond. I do not understand how you can understand America as it is now without covering its origins.
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I agree. But if you are a history teacher or school board who believes that America was founded by evil people and that there is nothing worth celebrating about America before JFK and Rev Dr. Martin Luther King; you are not going to want to focus on it.

Also, these are the same people who are against teaching Western Civ.
 
Thank God my parents sent me to Catholic schools, then. And when I become a full-fledged adult established in my field of work, I will run for school board in my community.
 
Couldn t help a " like " on that dream of participating directly in your community!
 
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