What do they teach people about the Holocaust in Germany?

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Biedronka

In Germany they teach it at school and kids go to the camps. Denying the holocaust is illegal, as well as showing the swastika etc.
Jew were not the only people to suffer during the war. There are plenty of Stolpesteine (brass cobblestones with names of people taken away) so that people will always remember.

There are also plaques stuck next to stations, bus shelters listing camp sites etc. I am surprised that little German boys and girls aren't tattooed with the words 'jew killer' on their foreheads;)

What do they teach you about at school? Do they sugar coat colonialism, genocide in your own country?

Alwin E

When I went to school, there was a good amount of teaching about the holocaust, and we went for Dachau and Mauthausen to see the concentration camps. And even if Germany has freedom of speech in its constitution, there's one exception to the rule: Public denial of the holocaust (or "revisionism", as those people themselves like to put it) is forbidden and punishable by law.

Now I don't really know what to think of catholic bishops denying the holocaust and a German (!) pope who shows mercy on them. If there's ever been a reason to become an atheist, this is the one.

But as we're in the "travel" section here: There are lots of reminders of what happened in Germany during the 3rd Reich. As mentioned above, Dachau concentration camp is a memorial site everyone should see, and there's the holocaust memorial and the Jewish museum in Berlin. But you also must accept that there are memorials for those German soldiers who died in the two world wars in many a village. I think that goes together well. Remembering the dead can never be wrong.

And as to public education, there's almost a "Nazi overload". The ZDF (German public TV) and the History Channel worked together in producing a documentational series about the 3rd Reich, with the so-called historian Guido Knopp, and there's a reason why for some time they called the History Channel the "Hitlery Channel". I mean, enough is enough.

There's one thing that makes me angry, however, and please excuse if that may hurt you or some readers here: I'm fed up with Germans not being allowed to criticize Israel's politics towards other nations. I'd love to live in a world where Germany is no longer regarded as the most criminal nation in the world, regarding to war crimes. YES, Germans did horrible things, and no reasonable person denies that. But modern Germany is different from what it was way back then, and I'd wish that the whole world understands that. We are in no way different from any other nation: We have neo-nazis, racists, Hell's Angels, the Mafia, Christian and Muslim fundamentalists, and corrupt politicians. Just like any other country in the world!

tonalc2

Neither. They teach exactly what happened, and have since the 50s.

A very good article on the subject:

http://www.iearn.org/hgp/aeti/aeti-1998-no-frames/holocaust-ed-in-germany.htm

frackledJJ

There is the one thing I am kind of wondering about: Why don't people research a question like that (it's not a subject that will change every second day, after all)? Honestly: I cheer on the people even asking the question, because they do not simply assume that Germany and Germans are still like they were back than (see http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;_ylt=AiZsfUBT49GIFZwCCRCkpCPty6IX;_ylv=3?qid=20090224145704AA9klNs&show=7#profile-info-qcH7jbK5aa),
but... I guess I'm just kind of getting tired of fighting against windmills.

Like Alwin, I think that Germans, like every other person in the world, should be allowed to criticize the politics of countries or the statements or deeds of other people if we think they are wrong or immoral, and not be told to shut up just because the people we criticize are Jewish, and we happen to be German. Seriously. We criticized Bush, and most US Americans agreed with us. What would have happened if Bush had happened to be Jewish?

Seriously: Wrong stays wrong. What Nazi-Germany did over 70 years ago was wrong. No doubt about it (and yes, we do learn about it, more in depth than any other country in the world, being, as we are, so close to the source, so to speak). Because of that, we are told to not look away and shut up if we see something going down the wrong way. But wrong is not wrong if Palestine and Israel are doing it, and Germany is the one saying "Stop!"? That is wrong, too.

We are not uncomfortable talking about it at all. Yet Germans can get kind of nasty if one tried to tell them they have no idea about what happened back than and that they are all still brainwashed.
Against popular belief, we are not, and the whole subject is not "sugarcoated" or skimmed over at all, either. There are memorials in every town, and there are many bronze cobble stones let into the streets in front of houses, with the names and dates of jewish people who lived there and were "taken away" by the Nazis. One can't escape that part of history in Germany.
Jewish communities in Germany, by the way, are growing in size as well as in numbers. And Germany is one of the safest countries for foreigners to live in, judging by international statistics. Safer and perceived more welcoming than the US even, in recent studies.

unknown

We learn everything about it in school.
We also go the Nazi camps to see how horrible it was.

Nantucket

"Sugarcoating" and "skimming over it" was a long time ago!
At least since the 60ties the entire III Reich, World War II and the Holocaust are major subjects in German history classes.

How come you think Germans try to deny this era of their history?

Haven't you heard just recently about the British (?) bishop Williamson a member of a right-wing Catholic "sect" who denied the Holocaust and the execution of Jews and other minorities during the III Reich? There was a public outrage in Germany (incl. the German Chancellor Angela Merkel) that he particularly did that in Germany! And as the Catholic church still hasn't urged him successfully to revoke his historical misinterpretation a noteworthy number of German Catholics left the church.

Little Wing

The Germans are actually very hard on themselves about it.
You can perform the fascist salute wherever you come from but do it in Germany and they'll lock you up and keep you there till you realize the seriousness of what you have done.

However when I was there I did encounter some racist behavior from older people. And I am tall, fair haired, have blue eyes and went to school 3 hours a day to learn German!!

fliege52000

This is very important part of education in German schools. I think this is OK, young generation need to learn what happened, discuss and think something like that never happen again.

Ryan HK

I'm horrified about the Holocaust during the Nazi Regime and shocked when somebody no matter what nationality denies it.
But I can understand if Germans and Austrians don't want to be branded to be the Nazi country and Jew killer same as Americans don't want the USA to be branded as the slavery country.

Very good contributions tonalc2, Alwin E and Leah S.

Thanks for the link Leah S. I tried it. However, the 'footage' part is the brain washing scene which is taken from the movie 'A Clockwork Orange' directed by Stanley Kubrick.:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-7656347491310375572

Denae Leah

All of us Jews know for a fact what exactly happened, and it wasn't just Jews wither...I think there were 1900 Catholic Priest gassed also.
Ironically when I was 12 I had a foster mother who was a nurse for the Nazi side, (She is about 89 now) and she said it smelled so bad and everywhere in the air had a bluish-grey haze to it due to all the humans being burnt. She even gave me a painted picture of some buildings in Germany at the time; it has a blue-gray haze over it.
I have an older friend whose parents were part of the group of Jews that hid in the forests for two years without being caught.
The president of Iran said that there was no Holocaust; well, his country did not even exist until after Israel was founded. (Dumd-@$$ desert wanderer~~)

The Modern day abortion was found by experimenting with Jewish women...It's all fudged up. But we have a lot of modern day medicinal miracles thanks to those days...

Pink Floyd found some footage of a Jew being experiemented on and used it for their "On the Run" Video. Check it out and see for yourself

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ku-ma1dVI8

celebrate_me_home_2000

They teach them how to give thumbs down.

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