Today is Yom HaShoah, or the Day of Remembrance for the World War II-era Holocaust that killed six million Jews and perhaps as many of some other ethnic groups the Nazis thought the world could do without.
This article at the New York Times suggests that memories of the atrocity are fading, with almost two thirds of people in a survey, aged 18 to 34, unable to identify the concentration camp Auschwitz. This situation demonstrates clearly that the words and actions of those labeled Holocaust deniers are ultimately unlikely to succeed in convincing people that the Holocaust either did not happen or the numbers involved are much smaller than six million. Poll respondents rejected the denier's claims.
On the other hand, if we wind up not remembering that the Shoah happened, well, we won't need to deny it, will we? We'll just be surprised when it happens again.
That is sad. I remember we had regular Social Studies units about it, so we learned the full horror (well, as was appropriate for the grade). I think the teachers' goal was "never again." (Also, I think one of my teachers had a relative who had to flee Germany at that time)
ReplyDelete(I also wonder if it was meant as a stand-in for some of the South Asia and Southeast Asia massacres that happened much closer to our own history, so maybe we would learn to recognize genocide as it was happening and say something. If so....my generation seems to have fallen down on that given Rwanda and Bosnia. Then again, looking at Syria....it does seem kind of hopeless).
There do seem to be an awful lot of important things that many 18 to 34 year olds don't know.
I can't quite understand it myself. My 18-to-34 window was in the 80s and 90s, going on 40-50 years removed from the events themselves, and the idea that you wouldn't know what Auschwitz was would have drawn the same looks having a second head. We read The Diary of Anne Frank in junior high. As I said, I just do not know how you get to 18 without having heard the basic facts of these horrible years.
ReplyDeleteI'm 49, so not that far off from you in age.
ReplyDeleteI wonder if the apparent increase in white supremacism is linked to the decline in this kind of teaching. Even if people who felt that way didn't change their feelings but felt ashamed of parading it in public, that would be an improvement.