Schools Teaching Too Much Hitler

[Israelite9191]

Unless I missed something, the Holocaust is being introduced WAY too late. It should be introduced by 7th at the latest or 8th at the very latest, preferably 6th. Looks to me like you get it in 10th! Way too late if you ask me, same for World History. Other than that, the Canadian system seems better. I mean, in America they don't even mention the Crimean war, I learned about it through the History Chanel personally.

 

[Jafendel]

(Sorry, skipping previous posts somewhat so this might be old.)

In short, history teaching should give the pupil a broad understanding about the world he/she lives in and why the relations between nations differ so much nowadays. Concerning Hitler and Holocaus, those represent events and ideas that nobody quite doesn't want to happen again. So it's good to teach those events in a adequate detail so that the pupil understands the whole consept.

History of pupil's homecountry should be also well explained, but IMHO going through every battle and forcing memorizing the years is rather oldish. Gaining an understanding about values and life of previous generations, and the reasons why something is done is more important. I'm not substituting history with psychology but anyhow.

For example, nationalism is rather new concept. Before 19th century people were more ready to follow a foreign rule than consider themselves a 'nation of people'.

 

[AL_DA_GREAT]

In Sweden all of 9th grade history is facism no communism. Its our pinko-commie goverment that doesn't ant ous to think of the evils of Communism.

 

[Heretic_Cata]

Over here they teach too LITTLE about hitler - this part is usualy for the last 2 months of the semester when everybody, including the teacher are not in the mood to talk about these things ... not that anyone would listen to what the teacher is saying even if he did start talking in depth.

 

[Ukas]

When I was in school, I hoped they would have teached more about Hitler because I was interested in the subject - but afterwards I think the history classes were well balanced.

I understand it may be fruitless and frustrative if one subject is on hand more than other. E.g. I often asked in Finnish class if we could read some useful books, like classics, popular books of the moment, memoirs etc. But no, book after book after book about some glue sniffing 13 year old punk having his first sexual experiences.

 

[-0blivion-]

Thankfully during my education we did not touch on Nazi Germany excessively - we had an essay on the Reichstag Fire but that was it really.

Im in Sixth Form now and taking history; You have the choice of Italian Unification or Nazi Germany here, and i took Italian Unification. The combination of Italian Unification + Elizabethan History (compulsory) is pretty interesting and different. Think we do Tzarist Russia next year.

Anyway, I have never had to learn too much about Nazi Germany, and im glad about that, as it is done to death on documentaries etc as it is.

 

[Israelite9191]

It may be over done in the media, but it is still a vital part of history to learn about in school. We must always remember that it may never happen again.

 

[Asclepius]

It may be over done in the media, but it is still a vital part of history to learn about in school. We must always remember that it may never happen again.

Why do so many people repeat this blatant falsehood? It HAS happened again (Bosnia, Rwanda) and it is happening now (Sudan). Are these incidents less important because the victims were either Muslim or Black?

 

[AxiomUk]

'Never again' is somewhat a motto for Britain, or perhaps just England, considering the damage that has happened to Europe over the first 60 years of the 20th Century that we don't want to go through again.

On teaching too much Hitler... I disagree. There is an obsession with people who say they are taught too much Hitler simply because it's overpublicised in the history books section of any book store and ten million documentaries exist on TV, each one thin and insubstantial. It's granted that Hitler and the Second World War are what you could call 'pop history' but there are reasons beyond that.
The events of the Second World War had a profound impact on society today, changing so many things in the aftermath that we could essentially say the foundation of modern society in Britain began in the post-war environment. You couldn't just jump into that without having a deeper understanding of what happened in the war and how much people lost.

 

[Richard Cribb]

- Teaching about Nazism and Fascism should have been more concentrated about its class policy and its intellectual roots.
- Military history is, IMHO, not very important.

It HAS happened again (Bosnia, Rwanda)

Do me a small favour.
Click on the link in my sig about the genocide that disappeared.
Read the article.
Comment upon it.
Reflect a bit over what is really blatant falsehood.

 

[thetrooper]

I can't recall any Hitler-obsession when I went to 'high school'. Curriculum best described as manifoldly. That may have changed though.

 

[Asclepius]

Do me a small favour.
Click on the link in my sig about the genocide that disappeared.
Read the article.
Comment upon it.
Reflect a bit over what is really blatant falsehood.

I think you need to get off your high-horse and re-read what I wrote and funnily enough what you highlighted in my quote.

Ignoring the fact that I could have named a multitude of other Genocide events which have happened since 1945, I chose to mention BOSNIA and NOT KOSOVA which your article covers.

I know the west, and PC politicians avoiding responsibility, like to use the words "ethnic cleansing" instead of "genocide" nowadays but if you can find a better description than genocide for the internment, torture, deportation, rape and murder of a distinct cultural or ethnic group such as what happened with the Bosniaks, then I'm all ears...

 

[Richard Cribb]

I think you need to get off your high-horse and re-read what I wrote and funnily enough what you highlighted in my quote.

Calm down, please.
If anybody is sitting on a high horse I get a feeling that it is not me.

Ignoring the fact that I could have named a multitude of other Genocide events which have happened since 1945, I chose to mention BOSNIA and NOT KOSOVA which your article covers.

- I am not clairvoyant .It is beyond me to know what you could have mentioned.
- I recognize that genocides has found place other places, like Eastern Timor, for instance.Turkish Kurdistan might also be considered.
- The article is mainly about Kosovo but also covers Bosnia. More material on this topic is not difficult to find.

I know the west, and PC politicians avoiding responsibility, like to use the words "ethnic cleansing" instead of "genocide" nowadays but if you can find a better description than genocide for the internment, torture, deportation, rape and murder of a distinct cultural or ethnic group such as what happened with the Bosniaks, then I'm all ears...

(I think we are threadjacking, but I am forced to comment on this).
And here it comes.
Using the term political correctness can be an effective rhetorical measure, but I have read it so many times that it just annoys me. And I am perfectly fine with the term genocide.
I get a feeling that you have the very simple perspective on the conflict in Yugoslavia that all atrocities was perpetrated by one group against another one. I don't buy that, and I have yet to see any good reference backing that up. .
Contrary I think that it becomes more and more clear that the demonizing of the Serbs exclusively was based on exaggerations, distortions and propaganda lies, and I think that one should try to find the motives therefore.
This could be worth a new thread by itself, but I am not sure about its merits.

 

[Israelite9191]

If you didn't notice Asclepius Jews have remained as prominent figures (disproportionally to the Jewish population) in faighting against modern genocide. I personally have strong feelings about the genocides in Rwanda, Armenia, Tibet (yes, China is commiting genocide as we speak on the Tibetan minority), and Sudan. My point is that the reason that genocide keeps occuring is that humanity refuses to remember the past and learn lessons from it. If man were truly to remember the Holocaust, the greatest modern and greatest documented genocide in human history, then new genocides would not occur. It is the job of humanity to remember the Holocaust and other such genocides in order to prevent further destruction.

 

[Asclepius]

Calm down, please.
If anybody is sitting on a high horse I get a feeling that it is not me.

Interesting interpretation. If your response had been framed in a less arrogant manner my subsequent post would have been totally different.

- I am not clairvoyant .It is beyond me to know what you could have mentioned.

No really? So then why invent things? My point was that other genocides have occurred, I merely randomly selected a few modern examples - I was not fixated upon Bosnia.

- I recognize that genocides has found place other places, like Eastern Timor, for instance.Turkish Kurdistan might also be considered.
- The article is mainly about Kosovo but also covers Bosnia. More material on this topic is not difficult to find.

No not hard to find at all, I possess more material on my book shelf. Are you denying genocide occurred in Bosnia? Holocaust denial is an offence in Germany, I believe that should apply equally to similar events such as Armenia and Bosnia in all countries who are signatories of the Genocide Convention.

[snip]I get a feeling that you have the very simple perspective on the conflict in Yugoslavia that all atrocities was perpetrated by one group against another one. I don't buy that, and I have yet to see any good reference backing that up.

How on earth could you possibly presume that I have a simple perspective on Yugoslavia? I'm surprised that you should resort to straw man argumentation. In my original two line response I merely pointed out that, contrary to Israelite9191's assertion that "it [genocide] may never happen again", it most certainly has happened on many occasions, of which I mentioned three examples. One of which was Bosnia.

Contrary I think that it becomes more and more clear that the demonizing of the Serbs exclusively was based on exaggerations, distortions and propaganda lies, and I think that one should try to find the motives therefore.

There may well have been propagandist distortion in some of the reporting, however you merely sound like a Serbian apologist. I would love to hear your defence of the Serbs convicted for breaching Geneva Conventions and the Genocide Convention at the Omarska, Susica, Prijedor, Brcko-Luka and Foca concentration camps. I guess those camps didn't exist or were Serbian propaganda as well?

I didn't post in this thread to bash Serbs or divert the topic onto Bosnia. I merely find the oft repeated "Never again", both vacuous and obscene when genocide has quite clearly happened on multiple occasions all over the world. Politicians like to shed a tear and look humble for that photo moment but are too afraid to actually do anything when genocide is happening on their doorstep. That is what truly sickens me.

 

[Asclepius]

If you didn't notice Asclepius Jews have remained as prominent figures (disproportionally to the Jewish population) in faighting against modern genocide. I personally have strong feelings about the genocides in Rwanda, Armenia, Tibet (yes, China is commiting genocide as we speak on the Tibetan minority), and Sudan. My point is that the reason that genocide keeps occuring is that humanity refuses to remember the past and learn lessons from it. If man were truly to remember the Holocaust, the greatest modern and greatest documented genocide in human history, then new genocides would not occur. It is the job of humanity to remember the Holocaust and other such genocides in order to prevent further destruction.

That's great, I'm glad you have "strong feelings about genocide", I'd be rather more shocked if you didn't. However, your position appears to have changed as you at least now recognise that genocide "keeps occurring". I can fully understand why the holocaust should be so significant to you but it was not the first genocide ever to have happened and it would appear also not the last. I would like to see the world treat all acts of brutality as equal examples of human depravity, without fixating on the Second World War. The sad thing is there was nothing 'special' about the Holocaust and that is a very depressing thought.

 

[Richard Cribb]

Interesting interpretation. If your response had been framed in a less arrogant manner my subsequent post would have been totally different.

My apologies then. I didn't intend any arrogance.
But I am actually fed up with the mentioning of certain conflicts while others always seems to be forgotten, and this usually seems to be exactly in line with corporate media.
And unfortunately English is not my first language.

No not hard to find at all, I possess more material on my book shelf. Are you denying genocide occurred in Bosnia? Holocaust denial is an offence in Germany, I believe that should apply equally to similar events such as Armenia and Bosnia in all countries who are signatories of the Genocide Convention.

Yes I am denying genocide, no I am not denying atrocities.Hardly surprising in such a vicious(and tragic) civil war.
I have some books on my shelf too, as well as of articles, reports, whatever.Some of them gives a little different picture.

There may well have been propagandist distortion in some of the reporting, however you merely sound like a Serbian apologist. I would love to hear your defence of the Serbs convicted for breaching Geneva Conventions and the Genocide Convention at the Omarska, Susica, Prijedor, Brcko-Luka and Foca concentration camps. I guess those camps didn't exist or were Serbian propaganda as well?

First of all, I am no "Serbian apologist", then I would hardly used atrocities in such a context, that should have been obvious. I was opposed to their ways at at time when Milosevic was a friend of the West. I am also well aware of crimes commited by them, I just find them blown out of proportion.
I also hope you don't deny that Muslims and Croats had very similar prison camps at Celebici, Tarcin, Livno, Bradina, Odzak, and in the Zetra camp in Sarajevo? You might want to have a closer look at the first one, for instance. Furthermore I must assume that on your shelf you have the information that Izetbegovic himself admitted when asked him about the Bosnian Serb concentration camps, that these claims had been inflated with the aim of getting NATO to bomb the Serbs?(See Bernard Kouchner, "Les Guerriers de la Paix".
And while the exact status of most of these remains to be established, there is unfortunately no doubt that many things reported are not true, or not the whole picture presented.
Hopefully time will show.

I didn't post in this thread to bash Serbs or divert the topic onto Bosnia. I merely find the oft repeated "Never again", both vacuous and obscene when genocide has quite clearly happened on multiple occasions all over the world. Politicians like to shed a tear and look humble for that photo moment but are too afraid to actually do anything when genocide is happening on their doorstep. That is what truly sickens me.

Yes on hindsight I think that I should have avoided this. What you write is true, but what sickens me much more is when huger atrocities are commited by regimes "we" support, while the actions of enemies are hyped beyond recognosation and then after some years we realize that what we were spponfed with might be not entirely correct.
If you want to go on with this, I propose doing so through PMs, I am a bit too occupied for the moment to proceed with this in an acceptabl paceand besides this is starting to be way off topic.
Have a nice day.

 

[Asclepius]

I never have understood why any argument that develops within a thread should be halted merely because it is slightly off-topic. If it is related and no Mod intervenes then I have no problem with continuing here. I know that some people like to follow arguments even if they don't participate.

Anyway, I'm hoping your obvious anger at the duplicitous nature of Western governments is the real reason for you to deny genocide happening in Bosnia. Otherwise I'd find that pretty outrageous.

As I'm sure you are aware but, for clarity's sake, genocide is classified by the Convention on Genocide as: acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:
(a) Killing members of the group;
(b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
(c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
(d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
(e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.

It has been more than adequately proven that Serbian forces acted in a coordinated manner with the aim of removing Moslim populations from ostensibly Serbian areas by the use of at least methods a), b) and c) However, defining such activity as genocide in a court of law has been extremely difficult.

All the same there have been numerous convictions at the Hague tribunal for breaches of the Geneva Conventions and two of complicity to Genocide.

ICT Convictions
ICT Cases

We will have to wait for the ruling from the International Court of Justice to decide whether Serbia as a nation conspired to commit Genocide as the ruling is not due until May.


I'm also equally aware of equivalent offences committed by Bosnian Moslims and Croats such as at the Celebici detention camp.(Two Muslims and a Croat have been convicted for their part in that camp.) However, downgrading the offences committed by the Serbs merely because others committed similar offences seems perverse. I completely agree that all heinous crimes should be treated equally, whether its ethnic Germans being force marched to their deaths from Czech homes in 1945 or Serbs being detained and beaten in Odzak. You must know, however, that the crimes committed against Serbs pale in number compared to those committed against the Bosniaks. Serbia has even withdrawn its counter-claim of genocide against Bosnia. Although I would hazard a guess that is due more to western pressure than the realization that genocidal incidents (however isolated) weren't also carried out against Serbs.


A little personal history; when Bosnia took Yugoslavia to the International Court of Justice at the Peace Palace in the Hague I used to live only 200 m away and saw nearly every demonstration that was ever held there. Both pro-Bosnia and pro-Serb. I tried to talk to many protesters from both sides and have therefore always been slightly more interested in this subject than I perhaps should. I found it rather ironic then of all the subjects you could have chosen you picked Bosnia.

Indeed, have a nice day. No animosity intended.

 

[Israelite9191]

However, your position appears to have changed as you at least now recognise that genocide "keeps occurring".

I never said that genocide does not continue today. My exact words in reference to the Holocaust were, "We must always remember that it may never happen again." I did not mean genocide as a whole, though that would be the ultimate benefit I would humanity would attain from remembering the Holocaust. What I meant was such a horrible catastrophe on such a level. It is most certainly true that genocides have continued that are horrific and their perpetrators should pay for their actions as much as is legally possible, and then some. However, the Holocaust was special in that it was the largest, worst genocide to ever happen. More people were killed (both in numbers and by percentage of the targeted population) than in any other genocide (the Communist massacers were not genocides except for a few cases such as Tibet). An entire culture, the Ashkenazi European Jewry, was destroyed. The Roma (Gypsies) were nearly eradicated in their entirety. Huge numbers of others were killed. Estimates for the total deaths range as high as 22 million. The reason that the Holocaust must be remembered is because it is the most horrific example of genocide. Not only did it include the most efficient death system, it also included rape, torture, drawn out horrific deaths by starvation and hard work, some of the worst medical "experiments" ever conducted (for instance, the German doctors poured acid on Jewish "patients'" eyes while the patients were completely awake and writhing in agony), as well as other horrors. I completely agree that other genocides need far more attention, but if humanity is to learn the horrors of genocide, then the best way is to learn the horrors of the prime example, the Holocaust. Also, I'd appreciate it if you kept your tone of voice more polite. I have never showed anything more than respect for you opinions and yourself even if I disagree with them, and I would appreciate the same.

 

[Asclepius]

@ Israelite 9191:
Your original post implied, at least to me, that the genocide perpetrated against the Jews must be remembered so that similar events in the future would be avoided. I disagreed with that interpretation because genocide has happened many times since and the Holocaust is not a unique event.

I may have been a little irked by the response from Luceafarul and my response to him may have been "short" but my response to you was in no way impolite, just because I disagree with your opinion doesn't make my response to you impolite. That is a non-argument. I don't agree with your figures and I don't believe any act of genocide is "more important" than any other.