andrewh - MemberAnother didn't know who the Falklands war (another housemate and I were trying to remember 'H' Jones' first name, she had no idea what we were on about)
Out of curiosity, I just asked my boss, who was on Hermes- he had no idea who H Jones was.
Quite disturbing, repeating history's mistakes would seem a likely result of being oblivious to major historical events such as the Holocaust. My lads have done the WWI Battlefields trip and the youngest is off to Poland in Feb to see the camps.
It's not hard to be informed, the BBC History mag is a good, if not in depth, source of history which should be required reading for secondary school kids IMO.
I didn't do history GCSE but funnily enough have heard of the holocaust, blaming the teaching profession because people don't know sh!te from shinola is a bit disingenuous to say the least. And re ireland, balkans etc there's a difference between remembering and learning the lessons of.
Not really sure genocide should be treated as a p*ssing contest, but...
Think Stalin wins on body count
but the holocaust gets a gold star cos it's about as near as anyone's come in modern history to actually annihilating an entire people
The Americas - wasn't necessarily a deliberate genocide, perpetrated by an individual/group, except the end of the 19th century in North America, maybe. Spaniards/Portugese were more into conquering and ruling, just managed to spread disease and cause death through displacement of peoples - just as despicable but different
I think people don't know because they don't want to know. Bit like the fact we piss about on the internet talking about bikes while people are starving to death/being murdered by tyrants, if we can dispell it to focus on somthing less challenging/ more palatable we will
he who dies with the most vegetables wins.
but the holocaust gets a gold star cos it's about as near as anyone's come in modern history to actually annihilating an entire people
I dunno, the British & Spanish made a good fist of it in the Americas
This mate is 40 years old, [b]reasonably intelligent[/b], good job, nice house and car, married, and has a 12-year-old daughter.
This is the bit I would call into question. Plenty of muppets out there who have no idea about anything beyond their immediate circumstances, but someone who is reasonably intelligent will almost certainly have heard of the Holocaust.
MrNutt - Memberbut the holocaust gets a gold star cos it's about as near as anyone's come in modern history to actually annihilating an entire people
I dunno, the British & Spanish made a good fist of it in the Americas
Bizarrely, you seem to have forgotten the Americans, that is to say citizens of the the USA.
I think people don't know because they don't want to know.
To a point, but you can't find out about something unless you know where to start.
Was reading the other day about how the Australian government won't recognise many of the deaths during the aboriginal wars on the national war memorial as they weren't really wars as they weren't overseas.
Similarly i am aware that there are claims that there are pre maori people in NZ.
And although i might be vaguely aware they don't affect my life so why would i dig and understand the full picture?
Mind you i can tell you that the shield of Ajax as described by homer is out of time, by hundreds of years in comparison to the rest of the story.
Thats just name calling, they're all ex brits, Irish or Spanish, mostly, in general, ish.
Thats just name calling, they're all ex brits, Irish or Spanish, mostly, in general, ish.
you missed the French from your list
MrNutt - MemberThats just name calling, they're all ex brits, Irish or Spanish, mostly, in general, ish.
Posted 2 minutes ago # Report-Post
They weren't Brits though, they were Americans and that was an American atrocity and nothing to do with us. It's no more down to Britain than the moon landing, Disneyland or raspberry frosted Pop Tarts.
And the French, although their couple of little outposts hardly count, and there's no such thing as an American as a race, they're a mongrel breed. 😉
They remember the past in ireland, the middle-east and the balkans (amongst others).
Which is why they still murder each other because of arguments their distant ancestors had.
That just shows you know a little history but even less economics. All of those conflicts are thoroughly modern (assuming you mean Israel and Palestine by "the Middle East") with their causes in mundane disputes over jobs, housing and markets in the 20th century.
I've checked and Schindler's List was '93, which makes him about 20 when it came out, surely the age at which most people are watching films so quite likely to have seen a film which got loads of Oscars (personally I reckon I've seen it at least 3 times, and I'm not a big film buff) - you'd think at the very least he would have heard of it. Or do people think that's all made up? I think my first question would have been whether he'd seen that.
mr mo - i bet the OPs mate had heard of WW2 hows that for a place to start digging?
you don't need to know everything about everything, no one does. but understanding something of the majorevents in human history might give someone a valuable insight in to human nature, their own cultural context and some of the reasons for modern conflicts, politics, points of view etc. This just might be relevant to them and way they choose to conduct their life, mais non?
Can't remember ever learning about the Holocaust at school, although I suppose it must have been mentioned at some point.
In much the same way that you never hear about the pogroms in the Soviet Union both before and after the Second World War, or the treatment of German PoWs by Soviet authorities. Or, if we want to be really damning, the treatment of the German people by their own government from 1933 to 1945.Not forgetting that the Americans and British came up with the idea of concentration camps as we know them, in the Civil War and Boer War respectively. Try Googling "Andersonville
None of that is exactly covered up, and Stalin's pogroms are frequently mentioned - just get into any who's-the-nastiest atheist vs christian conversation... Agreed they don't get as much publicity as the Holocaust, though.
Not sure who mentioned the Great (Potato) Famine in Ireland - I don't think that should be on the list. There was no intentional killing of a people, rather an ineffectual government letting ideology get in the way of an effective response.
Not quite true, as you can see I linked to different source...........the claims are made in a single book
but 1 million Germans pows
As imnotverygood said, it's because it's untrue. Yes, far more died post-war than was reasonable but there were SO many men under arms and so many important people hiding as low-ranking soldiers (Himmler for example) that it was important to keep them contained until they could be processed. Additionally, I think a lot of allied soldiers had little interest in being nice to the defeated army; my dad's uncle said his front-line British unit took two prisoners in the entire war, and his fight started in 1940 and went through to 1945.
In any case, currently the estimates are from 500000 to 1000000 deaths in total over the entire war with the lions share dying in Soviet hands.
Not sure who mentioned the Great (Potato) Famine in Ireland
That was me. Not really the space here to get properly into the history and causes debate, and isn't that usually the case with history - it's so inconveniently complex? Perhaps that's one reason why the nazi holocaust gets the higher awareness, there's such a simple narrative for people to follow...
Anyway, without getting into it in too much depth, my reasons for citing it (the Irish famine) stem from: 1 million dead (reasonably rigorous estimates by proper statistical types) when there was more than enough food being produced to feed everyone, but a lot of it was being exported. I do agree that it is debateable as to causes and culpability, but I'm calling genocide on the basis of the result.
But just in terms of culpability (and this applies to other ones, including that 1940s german thing), to what extent does culpability extend not just to those who perpetrate, but also to those who could have intervened, but stood by and allowed the horror?
I was concerned that I wouldn't have anything constructive to add to this discussion, but having read it through I'm surprised to find that I can.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howard_Jones_%28musician%29
You're welcome.
mr mo - i bet the OPs mate had heard of WW2 hows that for a place to start digging?
but is ww2 a war between germany and britain, end of story, or do you carry on, Burma railways, Pearl Habour, Hiroshima, Jews, Gypsies, Catholics, (remember the final solution wasn't just Jews), and if you start digging who do you believe? There are the denialists for a start.
then is the real war the one fought by the soviets on the eastern front or the one we know fought on the western front.
What about the french resistance, or the Vichy, how about the Jews such as Joseph Mengels who worked for the Nazis?
There's a large difference between an adult not knowing about something, and not having heard of it at all. Someone not knowing finer details about what happened during the Holocaust isn't all that surprising; I can readily see how it might not be the most engaging of subjects for some people. But having never heard of it at all, that's pretty bizarre I think.
gonefishin - Member...I were trying to remember 'H' Jones' first name, she had no idea what we were on about
Errr I've no idea who you are on about. Did you mean Herbert Jones? I googled the name and this is the first one that came up. [b]In the grand scheme of world history the Falklands was a fairly minor skirmish.[/b]
as a purely military engagement...possibly....but without the Falklands war Thatcher would have been a one term PM who dissappeared from view after achieving almost nothing.....because of the falklands the entire world changed....privatisation, deregulation of the banking sector these are now major global themes everywhere that came about because of Thatcher's survival as PM.
I contend that the Falklands was a very important event globally
Well thats what i thought, I know the approximate sizes of the german army at the begining and end of the war and also that the bulk of the German divisions were fighting the Soviet forces so i couldnt work out where all the prisoners actually came from (even counting non Germans serving in the German army). I'm not saying that war crimes by the allies never happened but as the Germans found out themselves the sheer logistics of covering up such a crime takes industrial planning and setting up and even then you probably wont get away with it (i accept that the allies won btw and thus could influence the history as it were).
Oh and back on topic, my MIL claims to have never heard of the Titanic until very recently!
Anyway, without getting into it in too much depth, my reasons for citing it (the Irish famine) stem from: 1 million dead (reasonably rigorous estimates by proper statistical types) when there was more than enough food being produced to feed everyone, but a lot of it was being exported. I do agree that it is debateable as to causes and culpability, but I'm calling genocide on the basis of the result.But just in terms of culpability (and this applies to other ones, including that 1940s german thing), to what extent does culpability extend not just to those who perpetrate, but also to those who could have intervened, but stood by and allowed the horror?
Similarly the genocides perpetrated against native peoples of North America and Australia tend to get short shrift in UK school curricula. Teaching about these seem to be associated (as does Irish Famine) with a "political" viewpoint, in a way that the Holocaust doesn't.
marcus7 - MemberOh and back on topic, my MIL claims to have never heard of the Titanic until very recently!
To be fair to your MIL..I've seen the film and I've tried hard to forget it.
....the hot dogs go on
I met someone who had heard of the Titanic, but thought the bit about the iceberg was invented by James Cameron 😕
I knew about Colonel H Jones, but probably because I met Chris Keeble, who was fascinating to talk to...
In remember doing the Diat of Wurms in history at school, lots of medieval stuff and then doing the Marshall Plan in European Studies at the height of he Cold War so had no exposure to the holocaust in school.
absolute unutterable BS
the bloke is having some sort of joke at your expense that went over your head
As a geographer I didn't do much history at school either, but we did watch Schindlers List nearly every time is rained. Maybe he had a run of lucky weather or a school with an all-weather pitch?
On the other hand I'm not sure if many under sixteens are really ready to comprehend the evil it takes to design, build and operate an industrial process for genocide
OP you might want to sure to direct him to Simon Sharnas series now on bbc2, whilst not explicitly on the holocaust the last episode covered a few issues.
It is scary how some people seem so ignorant of such important events, I suppose that's how evil prospers anew.
The Holocaust education work of the UN is quite broad and recognises there have been many examples of genoside.
the Three Years Difficult Period (estimates range 15mil - 45mil deaths) in China.
Well they win the prize for understatement at any rate.
As a geographer I didn't do much history at school either, but we did watch Schindlers List nearly every time is rained. Maybe he had a run of lucky weather or a school with an all-weather pitch?
As pointed out above, if he's 40 now then he'd have had to be very special to have watched SL at school. I presume you're in your mid 30s?
I have 1981 in my usernameAs pointed out above, if he's 40 now then he'd have had to be very special to have watched SL at school. I presume you're in your mid 30s?
I was kind of pointing out that schools really ought-not have to rely on Hollywood to provide all of their resources. I don't think they made any movies about factual circumstances in the 70's so that has ruined my retort.
Personally I'm surprised, but some people have very little curiosity and don't do anything much to find out stuff for themselves - so if it wasn't included his school curriculum then maybe he really does know nothing.
For e.g. I was never taught about Mao or Stalin and I'm still shocked that given the numbers they killed were massively higher then the Holocaust, that they're not given the same profile in our national conversation.
But ignorance is a funny thing. Most (59% of women and 69% of men IIRC) people in the UK are overweight and obese but don't appear to be aware of the damage they're doing to themselves, despite massive amounts of information and education...
is he saying the towering inferno is not a documentary 😯
What next the Poseidin did not sink
I'm afraid it didn't sink. It just capsized. Otherwise it wouldn't have been much of a film.
HTH
Funny reading through this, just how little curiosity about the wider world many people have. I went to a secondary modern school, didn't go to a grammar, or uni, and studied geography rather than history, but practically everything discussed here I'm familiar with, possibly because my dad, who died when I was thirteen, had various books around about the far-East campaigns, like Burma, etc, and he took me to see [i]Bridge On The River Kwai[/i] when it came out.
As a POW in Changi Gaol, he had close-up and personal experience of just how nasty things can get, and, while he never actually spoke much about his experiences, his books on life in Changi, and the Sino-Japanese war, left quite an impression on a young teenager.
My step-brother was on [i]Coventry[/i] when she was sunk in the Falklands, too.
I'm also very familiar with the English Civil War, as I put together a book on the Battle of Sedgemoor, 1685, and also a large book on Operation Paraquat, the battle for South Georgia.
I also have an inquiring mind... 🙂
Here's one book I put together, casting-off type, page layouts, selecting photos, paste-up, spotting-out the negs, making plates...
http://www.amazon.com/Operation-Paraquat-battle-South-Georgia/dp/0948251131
And the other one:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Sedgemoor-1685-John-Whiles/dp/094825100X/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1380239479&sr=1-3&keywords=sedgemoor+1685
I'm afraid it didn't sink. It just capsized.
Depends which film
I'm afraid it didn't sink. It just capsized
How come it's now at the bottom, rather than bobbing along on the surface?
We didn't really cover it very much at school it was mentioned how the Jews were isolated out and forced into camps, there was very little past that really.
When I was at school I was never once taught about the holocaust. Im mid 30s more or less and I find it odd that I was never taught about it. For me history lessons focused on the jacobites and Victorian period. 1st and 2nd world war was covered and I knew that the Nazis were bad but I cant remember in what way this was taught.
It was not until I went to the imperial war museum in London that I learned what and how shocking the holocaust was. Since then I spend a fair bit of my time reading about the 2nd WW.
I have to say it annoys me that I was never taught something so important and perhaps its not so much a sign of your friends stupidity but more of a failing of our education system.
Perhaps if my dad hadn't taken me to the London war museum I still wouldn't have known about the atrocities that the Nazi party carried out or how utterly stunning a spitfire and P51 mustang are!
I didn't get taught about it at school either, klunky, yet somehow I've managed to know about it. I don't believe that not having something spoon fed to you is necessarily an excuse to be ignorant about it.
