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Post by peasapie on Apr 9, 2021 13:03:53 GMT
That is very sad to read.
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Post by sleepingbooty on Apr 9, 2021 13:43:30 GMT
I'm a European millennial. WWII is a massive chunk of France's national history programme for the final year of high school so I remember studying for the Baccalauréat exam placing the concentration and extermination camps on the map.
For concentration (although some had gas chambers to kill prisoners not qualifying as fit to work), I remember: Bergen-Belsen, Buchenwald, Dachau, Sachsenhausen-Oranienburg, Sachsenburg, Stutthof, Struthof, Mauthausen, Lichtenburg, Ravensbruck, Theresienstadt, Riga, Vaivara. Missing out on quite a few here! Maybe if I sat down with a map I could think of a few more.
The six extermination camps: Auschwitz-Birkenau (Zyklon B), Chelmno (CO), Treblinka (CO), Lublin (Zyklon B), Sobibor (CO), Belzec (CO).
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Post by workingclassdog on Apr 9, 2021 14:21:20 GMT
My fil liberated Bergen Belsen. He told us a lot of stories, and I have read a ton, so I know a lot of them. My 20 year old son does as well. My husband's grandpa helped liberate Dachau. There is a plaque there at the entrance with his troop (or whatever it is called) on it. He really never spoke of it. I wish I knew more about it. Or tried to ask him about it while he was alive. My kids and I went there in 2018. I would say I could name three of them off hand. I have trouble with all the names. I read a ton of books about them though. I think my kids could name a couple of them. My oldest DD probably moreso as she reads about them like I do. |
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Post by workingclassdog on Apr 9, 2021 14:23:54 GMT
I can name one. Auschwitz (and I probably butchered the spelling). I'm in my 50s, my grandfather served in WWII. I was taught about the Holocaust and all the evil that went on. I'm horrified by it all. But does it make me a bad person that I can't name any more than one? No not at all. For me I think the foreign language/spelling is difficult so they are not easy to remember. There were so many and as long as we know that and know the general history that is important. |
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Post by KelleeM on Apr 9, 2021 14:49:39 GMT
I’m a 59 year old college graduate and never was taught anything about the Holocaust in public school or college.
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Post by auntkelly on Apr 9, 2021 14:49:58 GMT
I agree w/ others who have said I don't think it as important for younger people to know the names and locations of concentration camps as it is to have at least a basic understanding of why they existed and how many people died in concentration camps.
I also think everyone needs to know at least basic information about the rise and fall of Nazi Germany and the role of every country in WWII. I also don't think anyone can really understand modern politics without understanding how and why much of Europe was carved up after WWII.
I think it's really important that parents encourage their kids to learn about WWII at home and also that it is incorporated in school curriculum whenever possible.
I think that old adage is so true that the only way we can prevent history from repeating itself is to learn from it.
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Peal
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Post by Peal on Apr 9, 2021 15:00:50 GMT
My middle DS had pretty thorough holocaust units in middle school. He's my only child that went very indepth. He went to MS in TX. Oldest DS did MS in CO and youngest DS did MS in UT.
All three have visited Dachau. The holocaust is a not uncommon discussion topic at our house.
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Post by ExpatBackHome on Apr 9, 2021 15:04:59 GMT
My history book in fifth grade went from prehistoric man to Bill Clinton. It is no wonder that kids can't remember a lot when we just shove information down their throats. I maybe taught history for 30 minutes three to four times a week. I know that American history gets taught a couple of times in kids' education, but you never know what parts are covered in a book that is the largest book kids have. Some years I focused on the founding of the US, some years WWII and some years was more political. Now some history teachers are focusing more on 1950 to current events. They all learned about the Japanese internment camps because several of my favorite historical picture books covered that topic. The Bracelet, Baseball Saved Us, and Passage to Freedom. There were also a lot of great books that made children think about how others were effected in WWII. My all time favorite book to start a discussion was The Faithful Elephants. You could hear a pin drop when that book was read. Rose Blanche was another one that made that war a little more personal. Thank you for sharing these books. I’m going to track them down for my son and I to read together. |
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sueg
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Post by sueg on Apr 9, 2021 15:23:09 GMT
I am nearly 60 years old and consider that I had a decent education, though I was Science stream for the final few years, but I doubt that I could have named any concentration camps, except maybe Auschwitz, when I finished high school. I did know about the camps and other aspects of WWII as it had a major impact on my family’s history, but not specific names.
Now I live in Germany, and Dachau is only about an hour from Munich, so I have been there several times. It was on my list of ‘must do’ activities when I first came here to visit in anticipation of moving here, and I still remember how I felt that day. As to knowing the names of all the camps - I was stunned on my first visit to Dachau when I saw the map of just the German camps. There were hundreds, so only serious historians are likely to remember more than a selection of them. I have also been to Auschwitz-Birkenau when my sister and I travelled across Europe 2.5 years ago. That’s enough for me. Both were fascinating and frightful at the same time, but I feel I now have an understanding of it, and don’t need to experience it over again to remember.
I also feel that we often place to much of an emphasis on names and dates in teaching history, and not enough on explanations and understandings of what happened and why. Being able to recite a list of camp names means nothing if that is all we know.
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Post by fredfreddy44 on Apr 9, 2021 15:29:23 GMT
Yes. Escape from Sobibor is an excellent book.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Apr 9, 2021 15:42:32 GMT
My father was a WWII history buff so I picked up a lot of knowledge from him. We would also watch documentaries together.
These are the ones I can name:
Bergen-Belsen
Dachau
Auschwitz
Jasenovac (I recently learned about this one)
Treblinka
Sobibor
Buchenwald
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Apr 9, 2021 15:44:07 GMT
Yes. Escape from Sobibor is an excellent book. It was also an excellent movie |
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Post by koontz on Apr 9, 2021 16:19:17 GMT
Here in the Netherlands, most schools also organise class trips to a concentration camp. I remember that we also went to an exhibition of art from Ravensbrück, which housed only women and children (not that they had it any easier). It's been many years but I remember the weird contradiction between the ugliness of life in the camp and the beauty some of these women created.
You’re in the Netherlands? One of the best museums I have ever been to was the Dutch Resistance Museum in Amsterdam. So very well done, and really portrayed the horrors of the wars. I don’t think I will ever forget the baby’s pram with a hollowed out section under the mattress where the Mum kept a pistol - just imagine things being so awful that you have to keep a loaded pistol under your tiny baby! And your post reminded me of another powerful exhibit we saw there - embroidery done by the women in camps. They had just a couple of needles which they shared, and they would carefully draw a thread from their garments to use as embroidery thread to depict scenes from the camp, their families’ names etc. It was just as you say - a weird contradiction of ugliness of the camps and the beauty the women created. You know what, I have actually never been to that museum  . We have taken the kids to Normandy several times and have also been to the Anne Frank House but never the Resistance Museum. Thank you, that definitely goes on the list for when-we-are-out-of-this-***-pandemic. Several of my fathers brothers (he was the youngest and a kid during WWII) were in the resistance during WWII so I grew up listening to the stories. I also listened to my mom's stories of the German soldiers that visited her dad's dairy shop whilst there were people hidden in the attic. She was a little kid and some of these soldiers, probably just men missing their family at home, brought her little toys and such. Again the contradiction of the ugliness and, in this case, kindness.
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Olan
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Post by Olan on Apr 9, 2021 16:23:15 GMT
Matriculating in the ‘90’s Eli Wiesel’s book was pretty much required reading so I know a good deal about the Holocaust. I can name two.
I’ll admit a big part of me gets saddened at the attention the Holocaust receives because my ancestors don’t get the same respect or remembrance
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smartypants71
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Post by smartypants71 on Apr 9, 2021 16:37:37 GMT
Yes, but we very recently visited our Holocaust museum. I don't recall ever learning much about the Holocaust in school. I only learned about Babi Yar at my recent museum visit. It is horrifying to me that no one teaches about the largest single massacre during the Holocaust.
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Post by 950nancy on Apr 9, 2021 16:45:38 GMT
I am nearly 60 years old and consider that I had a decent education, though I was Science stream for the final few years, but I doubt that I could have named any concentration camps, except maybe Auschwitz, when I finished high school. I did know about the camps and other aspects of WWII as it had a major impact on my family’s history, but not specific names. Now I live in Germany, and Dachau is only about an hour from Munich, so I have been there several times. It was on my list of ‘must do’ activities when I first came here to visit in anticipation of moving here, and I still remember how I felt that day. As to knowing the names of all the camps - I was stunned on my first visit to Dachau when I saw the map of just the German camps. There were hundreds, so only serious historians are likely to remember more than a selection of them. I have also been to Auschwitz-Birkenau when my sister and I travelled across Europe 2.5 years ago. That’s enough for me. Both were fascinating and frightful at the same time, but I feel I now have an understanding of it, and don’t need to experience it over again to remember. I also feel that we often place to much of an emphasis on names and dates in teaching history, and not enough on explanations and understandings of what happened and why. Being able to recite a list of camp names means nothing if that is all we know. True. My second grade Sunday school teacher came from Germany and she and her family hid a Jewish family for several months in their home. My mother kept trying to impress upon me how noble and scary it must have been, but it wasn't until I was in high school that I really saw it from a different point of view. Whenever I hear about concentration camps and WWII, it brings back those stories of how a nation was fooled by a mastermind. |
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Post by epeanymous on Apr 9, 2021 17:06:36 GMT
I can name most or all of them, but I took a history of the holocaust course in college among other things, and my (older) kids can name camps, but they have been to the Holocaust Museum, and we are Jewish.
It is a real issue that the remaining survivors are now universally elderly, and that there will not be any left in a generation. The level of Holocaust denial and minimization -- for some of the most well-documented, and intentionally well-documented, events in history -- is already pretty high, so the adjacent ignorance is pretty concerning. I don't think that being able to name a laundry list of camps is necessary, but I am truly surprised people wouldn't, eg, have heard of Auschwitz (or, when I was a kid, everyone knew Bergen-Belsen, because everyone read Diary of Anne Frank and knew that was where she died).
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Post by miominmio on Apr 9, 2021 17:56:41 GMT
I am nearly 60 years old and consider that I had a decent education, though I was Science stream for the final few years, but I doubt that I could have named any concentration camps, except maybe Auschwitz, when I finished high school. I did know about the camps and other aspects of WWII as it had a major impact on my family’s history, but not specific names. Now I live in Germany, and Dachau is only about an hour from Munich, so I have been there several times. It was on my list of ‘must do’ activities when I first came here to visit in anticipation of moving here, and I still remember how I felt that day. As to knowing the names of all the camps - I was stunned on my first visit to Dachau when I saw the map of just the German camps. There were hundreds, so only serious historians are likely to remember more than a selection of them. I have also been to Auschwitz-Birkenau when my sister and I travelled across Europe 2.5 years ago. That’s enough for me. Both were fascinating and frightful at the same time, but I feel I now have an understanding of it, and don’t need to experience it over again to remember. I also feel that we often place to much of an emphasis on names and dates in teaching history, and not enough on explanations and understandings of what happened and why. Being able to recite a list of camp names means nothing if that is all we know. True. My second grade Sunday school teacher came from Germany and she and her family hid a Jewish family for several months in their home. My mother kept trying to impress upon me how noble and scary it must have been, but it wasn't until I was in high school that I really saw it from a different point of view. Whenever I hear about concentration camps and WWII, it brings back those stories of how a nation was fooled by a mastermind. No, Germany was not fooled by a mastermind. He, much like Trump, fed their bias and the racism and anti-semitism that was already there. The fear of the Asian hordes (and, truth been told, historically, Europe has had reason to be afraid), the hardships after the Versailles treaty, the anti-semitism that had plagued Europe for centuries....it was all there. And masterfully he told them what they wanted to hear. |
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The Great Carpezio
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Post by The Great Carpezio on Apr 9, 2021 18:10:13 GMT
I can name a few, but I couldn't have until I performed a speech in 8th grade and then I didn't know more than the couple in that speech until college age.
My 13 year olds know about the holocaust, but they couldn't name a camp, I don't think.
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Post by flanz on Apr 9, 2021 18:10:39 GMT
I'll start with the three that "hosted" my Polish Catholic Dad for a year each, after he'd already been a German Prisoner of War for 2.5 years:
Stutthoff
Dachau
Dora
Bergen Belsen
Auschwitz (Oświęcim in Polish)
one called Majdanek in Polish
embarrassed that I can't come up with the rest.
I am not a bit surprised that most younger folks have no idea about the horrors of the Nazis and concentration camps.
5 million people who were not Jewish were killed in addition to the 6 million Jewish people!!!
We must try to keep the information alive.
I'm first generation Polish Canadian (now American too) and knew of the holocaust largely due to my dad and his friends who had been in a displaced persons camp with him for 2-3 years in Germany after the war. Several of them settled in the same Canadian town and were my dad's best friends. I read a lot of books on the holocaust in my late teens, QB VII among them.
But in high school we studied the Russian and Chinese revolutions, Canadian history. I don't remember a word about the holocaust now that I think of it.
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Post by elaine on Apr 9, 2021 18:13:07 GMT
True. My second grade Sunday school teacher came from Germany and she and her family hid a Jewish family for several months in their home. My mother kept trying to impress upon me how noble and scary it must have been, but it wasn't until I was in high school that I really saw it from a different point of view. Whenever I hear about concentration camps and WWII, it brings back those stories of how a nation was fooled by a mastermind. No, Germany was not fooled by a mastermind. He, much like Trump, fed their bias and the racism and anti-semitism that was already there. The fear of the Asian hordes (and, truth been told, historically, Europe has had reason to be afraid), the hardships after the Versailles treaty, the anti-semitism that had plagued Europe for centuries....it was all there. And masterfully he told them what they wanted to hear. The parallels between Hitler and Trump are frightening and should highlight for everyone in the USA why studying Nazi Germany and the Holocaust is so vitally important. It is when people are ignorant of the facts and the history that they are more vulnerable to participate (either actively or passively) in allowing it to happen again. The names of the camps aren’t as important (I cannot bring myself to say that the names of those horrific places are unimportant - because they are to the families of people exterminated there) as understanding the what’s, why’s, and how’s of Nazi Germany and the Holocaust. I still cannot believe that neo-Nazis marched with torches an hour from my house in 2017 and that we had insurrectionists proudly wearing Camp Auschwitz and 6 MWE shirts storm the Capitol in the name of Trump on January 6, and one of the major political parties in this country appears to be fine with it. The Neo-Nazi movement is a huge problem in our country that should make many people - not simply Jews - alarmed. |
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Post by Ryann on Apr 9, 2021 18:38:52 GMT
Yes, but my FIL was a prisoner at three of them, so...
And I agree that you don't need to know/remember specific names to understand that atrocities occurred there.
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Post by snugglebutter on Apr 9, 2021 18:40:55 GMT
My education on the Holocaust was very basic, but honestly most of my history education was. In high school the requirement was 1 year of US History and 1 year of World. In college it was just US History. I'm learning a lot more while homeschooling my children and they LOVE history.
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Post by bc2ca on Apr 9, 2021 20:14:09 GMT
I'll add Terezin. When I was in college, I saw an art exhibition of drawings made by the children held there. It was a "model camp" used for propaganda purposes, and they allowed some of the children to be filmed doing normal things children do, like draw, before they were murdered. This was one I only learned about a couple years ago during a trip to Prague. And I agree that you don't need to know/remember specific names to understand that atrocities occurred there.  I agree. I've read and watched Schindler's List many times and just had to look up the concentration camp that provided his factory workers. It was Krakow-Plaszow. My young adults could name a couple each and I could name a few more. Both of them started learning about the Holocaust in 4th grade reading Number the Stars. They went on to read The Diary of Anne Frank, Night, Boy in the Stripe Pajamas, The Book Thief and Schindler's List. I'm pretty sure they saw the movies made from these books and others like The Zookeeper's Wife. They know about the Holocaust. |
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Post by birukitty on Apr 9, 2021 20:14:22 GMT
Yes, I can name a few. Without looking anything up these are what I remember:
Auschwitz-Birkenau
Dachau
Buchenwald
Ravensbruck
Treblinka
Maunthausen
Bergen-Belsen
Sobibor
Theresienstadt
That's all I can name off the top of my head but I know there are tons more, and many I am forgetting at the moment. I've been reading about the Holocaust since I first heard about it in school during the 1970's. I've been twice to the e Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington DC and in 2017 was finally able to go to the Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial Museum. I spent 8 hours there myself and it was a truly emotional, humbling experience. One I will never forget.
I've also been to the Anne Frank Haus in Amsterdam and twice to the Carrie Ten Boom Museum in Haarlem, Netherlands (just a 15 minute train ride from Amsterdam). The second time I went I was the only visitor there (it was in November and raining that day) and I got an amazing tour and got to stand in the "hiding room" by myself. It's a very small museum but well worth seeing if you liked the book or movie.
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Post by pierogi on Apr 9, 2021 20:43:37 GMT
Offhand without looking:
Auschwitz I, II, and III
Treblinka
Sobibór
Belzec (Heydrich Triangle)
Majdanek
Bergen Belsen
Ravensbrück
Sachsenhausen
Dachau
Natzweiler
Stutthof
Theresienstadt / Terezin
Westerbork
Mauthausen
Chelmno
Neuengamme
There were hundreds of labor camps like Trawniki, etc., but those were usually included in a satellite of a larger camp.
I’m honestly shocked that the Holocaust isn’t being taught in schools now. Given where our country went in the last four years, and the rhetoric and violence still leftover, people need to understand the patterns and consequences of this brand of fascism and where it leads. There’s a reason why my husband’s family is so tiny - his relatives are under Ponary Forest outside of Vilna. History will repeat until people learn.
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Post by mollycoddle on Apr 9, 2021 20:49:35 GMT
I agree w/ others who have said I don't think it as important for younger people to know the names and locations of concentration camps as it is to have at least a basic understanding of why they existed and how many people died in concentration camps. I also think everyone needs to know at least basic information about the rise and fall of Nazi Germany and the role of every country in WWII. I also don't think anyone can really understand modern politics without understanding how and why much of Europe was carved up after WWII. I think it's really important that parents encourage their kids to learn about WWII at home and also that it is incorporated in school curriculum whenever possible. I think that old adage is so true that the only way we can prevent history from repeating itself is to learn from it. I agree. It’s such an important time in history, and it would be good for students to understand what happened and why it happened. |
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Post by karinec on Apr 9, 2021 23:29:12 GMT
I can.
Both of my girls had to go to the Holocaust Museum in Los Angeles as part of their high school curriculum. It was a tough day for each one of them but I’m glad they had such an impactful reinforcement of those horrors being taught in their school.
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julie5
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Post by julie5 on Apr 9, 2021 23:32:04 GMT
Yes and so can my son. We just did a study on the Holocaust because it’s very important to me. I love homeschooling.
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Post by lesserknownpea on Apr 10, 2021 0:08:21 GMT
Yes, I can. And may I say I agree strongly with everything elaine said |
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. We have taken the kids to Normandy several times and have also been to the Anne Frank House but never the Resistance Museum. Thank you, that definitely goes on the list for when-we-are-out-of-this-***-pandemic. Several of my fathers brothers (he was the youngest and a kid during WWII) were in the resistance during WWII so I grew up listening to the stories. I also listened to my mom's stories of the German soldiers that visited her dad's dairy shop whilst there were people hidden in the attic. She was a little kid and some of these soldiers, probably just men missing their family at home, brought her little toys and such. Again the contradiction of the ugliness and, in this case, kindness. 
I agree. I've read and watched Schindler's List many times and just had to look up the concentration camp that provided his factory workers. It was Krakow-Plaszow.
