Belfast Telegraph Home > News http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/sto...sp?story=589349 Ulster war hero hits out at death camp ignorance Almost half do not know where Nazis slaughtered a million people By Andrea Clements 03 December 2004 An Ulster war hero today called for the upgrading of modern history in local schools after a poll revealed nearly half of Britons have never heard of Auschwitz. Speaking after the BBC poll, which showed 45% had never heard of the Nazi death camp in which one million people died, Sir John Gorman, a lieutenant in the Irish Guards during the Second World War, spoke of witnessing the "barbarous" treatment of prisoners at Sandbostel concentration camp. Among women and the under-35s, the figure is even worse, with 60% pleading ignorance. The BBC commissioned the survey, which interviewed 4,000 people in advance of Holocaust Memorial Day on January 27, which marks the 60th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz. Sir John, a former UUP MLA, said: "War is a part of life that young people are going to have to be prepared for. "The idea that war is going to disappear is wrong - they have got to expect it. "Just being dismissive of war and contemptuous of those who fought is not a sensible way to act." During the last few days of the war the Irish Guards had arrived at Sandbostel on the Baltic Coast. "We were trying to do something to keep some of the dying people alive. "A hole had been dug to put dead bodies in. "The people running the camp behaved in a barbarous way." The SDLP's Justice spokesman Alban Maginness said he was "flabbergasted" by the widespread ignorance. He said: "Auschwitz is a monument of man's inhumanity to man and a monument of intolerance and genocide. "The fact so many people are unaware of its existence is a shocking indictment of the way modern history is taught in our schools." The BBC is screening a number of special programmes, including a live event on Holocaust Memorial Day. The centrepiece is the BBC2 series Auschwitz: The Nazis and the 'Final Solution', described as the "definitive" account of what happened.
And this is AFTER Schindler's List came out. It stuns the imagination. Go ask these under 25s if they can tell me who Gwen Stefani, Christina Aguilera, and Britney Spears are, and the names of their last CDs.
There is something quite terribly lacking when our youngsters are not made aware of what went on during the war. Or indeed, of the sufferings of so many peoples under the evil of the Nazi regime. Why are children are not made aware of this evil, as soon as they are old enough? I do not know. With that in mind, I have posted a description of the Belson death camp, in the hope that some one will learn at least a little of what went on. Lest We Forget. Headquarters. 30th Armoured Brigade. B.L.A. 1st of May 45 Belson Concentration Camp The countryside around Belsen is attractive enough at the best of times, and on this perfect April morning particularly so, and there was a strange relaxing sense of peace about the pine woods with the sun penciling down through the trees to the soft earth. The apple trees bordering the road so far as the eye could see were in full blossom, a perfect match for the blue sky overhead. I saw a farmer walking slowly over his fields with his dog at his heels, and the children playing in the farmyard, gay with flowers. About two miles from the camp a large notice hung from a pine tree by the roadside. It bore two words in large print-DANGER-TYPHUS. I felt a momentary start when I saw it, but still the sense of peace and spring predominated. On reaching the village of BELSEN I learned that entry into the camp was impossible, so I decided to look in from the outside, and after a few minutes in the car I could see the barbed wire of the compound through the pine trees. I got out, left the car on the road and walked along the soft turf of one of the rides through the trees, feeling the sun comfortably warm on my back. A stench of something filthy began to pervade my nostrils; then suddenly I came to the end of the ride to see facing me a large expanse of treeless ground surrounded by high coils of barbed wire. I looked through the wire. The uneven ground inside was devoid of grass and was covered with slimy rags, rotting planks of wood, and paper stained with human filth. A Nissen hut stood twenty yards from where I was, and outside it was a pool of urine, some of which staining the earth like a dye had formed a morass of slime, whilst some had run away down the slope under the wire had formed a similar pool at my feet. A woman came out of the hut, squatted down outside and performed her natural functions. She raised her head, wiped away the matted hair from her eyes, and looked at me with a face as expressionless as an animal’s. Then, indifferently she looked away. Inside the hut I could see piles of straw, black with dirt and grease, and here and there a few blankets, rotten with age and stained with decaying filth. Another woman came slowly out of the hut, lay down in the pool of muck and closed her eyes. Her dress consisted of a long garment, after the style of a nightgown, which had once been blue with black stripes — but long months of use and continual wallowing in slime had rendered the colours unrecognisable. Ten yards away from the hut was a shallow pit. A mound of earth prevented me from seeing what it contained, but a thin wisp of murky smoke rising up and a sour stench told me that something revolting was burning inside. The sight of all this, taken in one split-second glance, was like a blow in the face. Gone was the sun shining through the pine-trees, momentarily unsensed was the stench. My mind-strained only to take in the scene which my eyes witnessed. It was like being suddenly brought face to face with some fantastic horror film — only instead of being on a screen it was there in reality in front of me, on the other side of the barbed wire. I began to walk around the outer perimeter of the camp, and the scenes I describe multiplied themselves tenfold as I went on. The creatures inside moved silently about like some macabre figures against a background of infinite squalor, and here and there I saw huddled objects, covered with the now familiar striped garments, lying in an unnatural twisted mass in the dirt, I could only think that they were dead. The ones that were still alive could no longer be called human beings — they were animals, strange revolting animals that one looks at with an involuntary shudder through the bars of a zoo cage, and never — never again will they rise to the level of human beings. All human instinct, all human feeling has been lost, extinguished for ever in this clearing in a pine wood in Northern Germany. So devoid of all that is essentially man are most of them, they do not know that they are free. I saw a British soldier, anned with rifle and fixed bayonet, supervising the work of the SS guards who were still there when the camp was overrun. These guards are now being made to work almost night and day clearing up and digging graves for the dead, and, after five days they were almost dropping from fatigue. One of them stopped digging for a moment to straighten his back; he was immediately prodded forcibly with a bayonet and told to get on with the job. Several of the inmates stood by watching, but they showed no sign of elation or relief in seeing their former tormentors treated thus — they were beyond that. A shape, whose head had been shaved revealing a bald scalp streaked and coated with grey dirt, and who might have been male or female, was lying propped up on one elbow near a stinking pit., He, or she, was looking down at a plate of what looked like army stew and potatoes, picking up pieces of meat in a spoon and examining it only. Food had for so long been raw turnips and water, with a bread ration so infinitesimal that it could not be called a ration as such, that the sight of what was on the plate produced no excitement, no arousing of the appetite whatsoever. I learned that KRAMER, the German Commandant, who was captured, had been thrown in a cell in a barracks nearby. I was told a story - How true it is, I cannot say — that on his capture he was asked by a curious interpreter why he had remained in the camp rather than escape. His reputed answer was that he had nothing to fear concerning the condition of his camp And, indeed, it would seem that he and his guards had somehow grown used to this horror of a place, that their minds had become twisted and warped to conform to their surroundings; despite his confinement he is still the arrogant Nazi. 60,000 prisoners had been found in the camp when we arrived, and an average of 800 were dying daily. Some, who had been there a matter of months, had been taken out, but nearly 20,000 are so riddled with filthy diseases and so devoid of any spark of hope and life that they had been left there, in spite of everything that medicine can do. Nearly all were political prisoners, Belgians, French, Dutch, Russians, Poles and Germans who had in this terrible way paid the penalty for listening to the BBC news and partaking in anti-Nazi propaganda. People of all ages from children to elderly men and women had been transformed into objects of sickening revulsion, and , through months and years spent on this patch of ground amid the pines, days when you and I were talking and laughing and working, had slipped gradually down the scale of life towards what was merely a rotting bestial existence. I walked back down the drive to the car and we drove off down the same straight road. The horizon was still hazy in the spring sunlight, and the apple blossom still massed its colour above my head. My driver was still the same, the children playing in the farmyard were still the same. But now over everything hung a pall, creeping insidiously into the mind like a maggot. Tainted and stained with the memory that was BELSEN. This account of BELSEN was given to me by an old friend “Alan Westerman” who was there at the time, again the typing is absolutely as the original document. Sapper. November 6th 1998.
This is truly staggering when you consider that the Holocaust is part of the curriculum for GCSE history. I guess it shows that inspite of the wave of "popular" history these days, young people are still dropping it in large numbers as a school subject. Mark, did you make your trip yet?
It's strange because even when students VISIT Auschwitz-Birkenau they don't always have a respectful attitude to what it means. I saw this two months ago when I visited the camps--an extremely intense experience for me--and found myself constantly interruped by groups of schoolkids pushing, shoving and generally carrying on like it was all a big theme park. I suppose it's all a bit overwhelming for young minds and perhaps the shenanigans are a kind of pressure release. That being said, at Birkenau I was struck by one young girl whom I saw sitting off by herself, quietly contemplating and meditating on what she was seeing. She set the example, I think, of how someone--young or old--can set him or herself off from the pack and take a few moments to pay proper respect to the immensity of history. PS: Anyone interested in Auschwitz-Birkenau, I have quite a lot of information, pics, notes, etc.
The Holocaust isn't actually studied in detail by most GCSE Candidates. On the AQA Modern World History paper, for example, the 'Nazi Germany' topic only goes up to 1941, covering earlier persecution of the Jews but not the Final Solution itself. I assume that most people who teach this provide students with at least an outline of the later events, but given the 'exam factory' nature of modern teaching there's no guarantee. Not all GCSE Candidates do Modern World History of course. However a growing number of schools teach the Holocaust as a distinct topic in Year 9 (year before GCSE), as part of a 20th Century History Module. As a result all children should have some exposure to it. As a matter of interest I cannot recall the Holocaust being mentioned during my entire school career in the 1960's or 1970's when I studied History to A-Level or for that matter in the three years I studied the subject at Cambridge.
Originally posted by Mark Hone@Dec 10 2004, 06:41 AM As a matter of interest I cannot recall the Holocaust being mentioned during my entire school career in the 1960's or 1970's when I studied History to A-Level or for that matter in the three years I studied the subject at Cambridge. [post=30041]Quoted post[/post] Me neither, although I think I am a bit older than you. The 20th century was not covered in my school history at all. I remember that in my early teens there was a documentary on TV, which was the first time I learned of the Holocaust (of course it was not called than then). I remember my mother getting more and more agitated because she thought I should not be seeing it, but to give her full due she did let me. I did not sleep that night though. This may have been around 1960/61. It is only in the last 20 years or so that I have actually done any reading on the Holocaust and I shudder to think how ignorant of it I really was as a young person.
Angie-Probably the 'Genocide' episode of 'World At War' which was originally shown with some sort of warning symbol in the corner of the screen. I wasn't allowed to watch it but it was the subject of mush discussion next day at school.
I'll risk a stab at trying to explain the lack of knowledge and understanding of the 'Final Solution' in todays youth. Todays teachers were themselves taught mainly by teachers who were committed to the 60's revisionist theories of education. These theories were being expounded by people who probably experienced war and were heartily sick of it, my junior school Headmaster was a Somme veteran. The 60's hedonism can be compared to the Dada movement of the 20's as a hysterical reaction to war and its horrors. These horrors are then pushed into the background as a way of forgetting them and minimising the effect that teaching them would have on the teacher rather than the student. In todays schools the emphasis is on everyone being good Europeans and to teach what really happened only some 65 odd years ago would taint our young minds against Germany, as children tend to paint with a broad brush and would not identify between the Nazis and todays good citizens of Germany. A shame indeed but can any one on this forum see todays government sanction children being taught the truth? Thought not.
I don't know what they do in England, but in America, history is taught basically as a mix of political indoctrination and memorization. I was very annoyed that the bulk of my final examination in history was mostly about the Constitution, the separation of powers, and my rights and responsibilities as a citizen. I acidly wrote on the essay that my main responsibilities as a citizen was to shut the hell up, do what my teacher told me, accepted what my principal and bosses thought of me, register for the draft when the president told me, and give unquestioning obedience all the time. The Holocaust was not taught yet...the term actually hadn't come into existence yet. Some textbooks discussed the Holocaust. Another textbook I used dismissed the Holocaust in one sentence. The impact of this teaching was to make students bored with history, as it became a procession of inevitabilities, in which the good guys always won no matter what, and the average person played little role. History was made by grim-looking statesmen in powdered wigs and heavy Victorian beards, usually by arrows on a map. After 12 years of this, most students regarded history as something insufferably dull, to be memorized and spouted back on the final examination, with a five-page term paper (properly footnoted and bibliographed), and then forgotten as soon as it was done. Today Holocaust education, at least in New Jersey, is part of the curriculum, as early as 6th grade. Kids are introduced at that age to Anne Frank. In Newark and other cities, they go on class trips to the local annual Holocaust observance -- ours is the largest -- and hear speeches from survivors or experts on genocide. Last year we had a guy talk about the Nazis in Newark in the 1930s. Next year we will have an expert about black troops in the US Army in WW2, in keeping with the V-E Day motif. Is that good enough? I don't know. But if today's textbooks are as lousy as mine, no.
This was also post on the Great War forum. If you want to check it out, here is a link; http://1914-1918.org/forum/index.php?showtopic=24136&st=0& The link will work if you are a member and log in.
I just wanted to say that when I was in 8th grade, we spent an entire section on the Holocaust itself, but at that age the full impact of it is hard to comprehend. As I got into high school, even in World History the Holocaust itself was not studied in depth, but I think this is due, in part, to the vast amount of information that is included in these subjects. Afterall, it is only 181 days to learn several hundred years worth of information. And yes, most youth these days think of history as something that is to just be spat back at the teacher, but that is because of the way it is taught. Students are lectured then asked to take a test of the facts, there is little application of the information. Even in college, however, this has not changed. If anything, it has gotten worse. The freshman history classes are overviews, because face it- students are learning American History since BC times to the present in about 8 months. I was, however, very disappointed to learn that my college did not offer a class on WW2. There is one on Vietnam, but not WW2. But, overall, atleast in Texas and most parts of the South, youth in America do know about the Holocaust and Hitler, but it was also events that happened many years ago overseas, so there is not even constant reminders of it. The Civil War, however, is still very much alive in the South, and I believe that is because it is easier to remember. But youth do know what is going on and they are taught about the history, even the worser parts of it.
As a schoolboy, we were never taught about the Holocaust, my first introduction to the subject was when two of my uncles spoke about their time when as British Soldiers they entered Belsen on the First day. Later on, I discovered the book “100 Hours to Suez” which mentioned it; and from that sprung my interest in Israeli history and ultimately the Holocaust. One of my most precious possessions is a copy of the Kadhesh or prayer for the dead, which had been carried by a Rabbi during his time in the camps. At Uni, it was covered in the Third Reich seminar in great detail but what was shocking was one lad who boasted that he had an A in A level History but when asked a question admitted that he did not know that the Germans had invaded Russia!
Flamingo, welcome to the boards, and what you say doesn't surprise me. History is just taught to be repeated, and you reminded me of another point...often history teachers know as little about the subject as their students. In some schools, history teachers double as coaches. They are more concerned with their football, basketball, or baseball team, than their history teaching. One of my buddies in Navy boot camp told me his history teacher was his football coach, and American History consisted of the history of the US Marine Corps. He knew what Tun Tavern was, and who fought at Inchon, but could not tell me what the Monroe Doctrine was about. 181 days is not enough time to do the history of the world from Babylonia to Baghdad, even if it winds up in the same place. In my US history class, we had to stop in the invasion of Sicily to start reviewing for the big final examinations. The teacher asked if we had any questions, and I said, "Mr. Bernstein, should I buy more war bonds to bring an early defeat to the Axis?" After the class broke up laughing, I went to the Assistant Principal's Office for my "attitude."
Kiwiwriter-I assume you're talking about US History Teachers in your post. I can assure you that History teachers in the UK are usually somewhat better qualified than you suggest. I have a degree from Cambridge University in History even though I used to coach one of our school football ('soccer' to US readers) teams. As I tried to explain in my earlier post, the Holocaust is actually widely taught in today's British schools. It was my generation, ie 30 and 40 year-olds and above, to whom it was probably never mentioned.
Originally posted by Mark Hone@Dec 16 2004, 02:51 AM Kiwiwriter-I assume you're talking about US History Teachers in your post. I can assure you that History teachers in the UK are usually somewhat better qualified than you suggest. I have a degree from Cambridge University in History even though I used to coach one of our school football ('soccer' to US readers) teams. As I tried to explain in my earlier post, the Holocaust is actually widely taught in today's British schools. It was my generation, ie 30 and 40 year-olds and above, to whom it was probably never mentioned. [post=30176]Quoted post[/post] Yes, I am referring to American history teachers. I would not venture to comment on other nations' teachers. American education has a tendency to equate athletic excellence with intelligence and life intelligence, and sports success with school success. If the school has a good team, it is a good school, even if the kids have trouble counting to 12.
