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Someone please disprove this article:

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=573&ncid=757&e=4&u=/nm/20041203/od_nm/media_auschwitz_dc

Anyone in England? Help here!

Sounds about right. What did you expect?

jawdrop
*rubs eyes and rereads the article*

I am speechless.

Why Ush? WWII happen in your backdoor? How can they not be aware?

Auchwitz? Whats that?


Yep, its true i read it this morning. Kinda disgusting, after all, we look down on America for this type of thing.


I love being a snobbish nation
I hate getting our comeuppance weep

WWII was on our doorstep because the Germans bombed the crap out of our cities and our guys personally fought in a lot of places. Auschwitz happened in Poland which is on the far side of Europe and was dealt with by the Russians.

The only reason Americans have heard of it at all is because of the powerful Jewish lobby there. Other than that it is part of history now and the majority of important historical events go over the head of the average person. So I am certainly not surprised- for most today the word has no relevance.

That I can agree with Ush. Here in America our schools do get more into the Holocaust than the actual battles of WWII.

Then I' m wondering what your history program consists of.

Ah!
This i can help with!

*gets history book with term plan*

Causes of ww1
*skip war*
The treaty of versailles
the league of nations/sucesses and failures
Causes of ww2
why america and the ussr became rivals 1945-1949

So as you can see, term one in a GCSE class skips events during the war, and covers events leading up to the war and post war actions....

Mostly English and West European. The reason it is taught more in your schools is because your nation was occupied by the Nazis and hence directly fed into the concept. We never were.

And furthermore, what is the context here? if you asked people if they had heard of the Holocaust, you would probably get a much bigger response. But Auschwitz is a name alone, and in isolation a lot of people without specific historical knowledge would not get the link. If you said "Auschwitz? You know, town in Poland, occupied by the Nazis, built a work camp there..." then suddenly a load more would say "Oooh yeah, isn't that where loads of Jews died?"

And why all this focus on Auschwitz? What's wrong with Dachau? Start going through the list of OTHER huge bastions of deaths and the reponse will be pretty low WHEREVER you went.

People don't know the specific names of all sorts of important historical places without prompting. People around here don't know about battles like Badajoz, San Sebastian, Salamanca, Toulouse, Crecy, Poitiers, even flipping Agincourt! Not even Nasbey! I mean, Naseby, it was in our own country and set the entire course of our future history!

With that in mind, why the heck should I expect the average person to know what Auschwitz is if simply given the name in isolation with no clues?

Before I go on, please this thread isn't to embarass or accuse anyone or any nation of anything. But what I want to understand is whats happening to history here? I don't expect everyone to know a specific place of WWII. Heck, I don't even know some of the towns of the war, and I'm pretty much your average joe on the street. What is happening here with History? Is it fading away?

Basic compulsory history where I am teaches it

Why learn about old wars when we can worry about future ones ?

Yup. Will always happen. People's interest in History is lamentably low. Auschwitz is passing out of living memory and into history alone. Knowledge of it has been fading, is fading and will continue to fade until it is the province of the scholar. The same will happen to 9/11 one day, though I dare say the media machien will keep it going for a long time- maybe even longer than the Holocaust, and what does that say? Though even then it will be remembered for that it did ("x, y and z all happened after 9/11..." is how people will see it) than for what it was.

there is a camp like that in my city

I'm not too surprised...and I bet that there's a lot of Americans who don't know what Auschwitz or Dachau or Bergen-Belsen or Buchenwald were, despite the fact that history classes here do focus more on the Holocaust than actual battles. Hell, when I had US History we did a HUGE unit on WWII and hardly learned anything more than the causes of the war, the Holocaust, Pearl Harbor, and dropping the bombs on Japan. Frankly, I learned more in my German class than in US and World History together.

And if we want to talk about clueless people...I read somewhere that about half of Americans don't know that Canada is a seperate country don't have a source for that, so it's probably not too accurate, but still...the average person is woefully clueless about the world around them. And it's quite sad.

A majorit of Americans asked couldnt point out Iraq on the map

Yeah, I can see that happening, I did know about Auschwitz (I cant spell it though) because I used to have a great interest in the two World Wars.

Auschwitz weep
Death camps/concentration camps, disgusting places. I dont kno why they were left standing

yea, it's shocking how little a lot of people know about that stuff....
we read a newspaper article in school about that once, that a few didn't even know who hitler was...

well, education is going down, we are going down,.... no reason to stop looking down on america for that
we all have to look down on someone to feel better and discriminate other people to feel better

wow, how good are we?

cry



that is like sooo true

I know

Why should i learn about the first 'great war' which could and should have been avoided?
Why learn about the second world war, which should have also been stopped, and would have been if not for appeasement and over-harshness on Germany after ww1, when i can learn nothing and still get a job in the amry who will be snapping up recruits by the thousands every day because of another war that could and should have been avoided.

i know.
they are to show people how awful things are possible to happen, even in so called civilisated nation.
also to praise those who were killed there

and there are few more reasons, but it's hard to translate

People say that as if it was laughably silly, but look at a world map with no names or borders on and MOST people would have difficulty precisely pointing out Iraq's location.

Ok, I know what happened there, could they knock the buildings down and maybe have a stone with the markings on? An attractive bench?
I dont know about you but i dont like seeing buildings in which people died in, theres one across my street and i hate it being there, and that was just one person. This is thousands of people dying as a result of hate....unfounded hate. Praise them by removing the buildings built by their tormentors to imprison them

We can learn from history how past generations thought and acted, how they responded to the demands of their time and how they solved their problems. We can learn by analogy, not by example, for our circumstances will always be different than theirs were. The main thing history can teach us is that human actions have consequences and that certain choices, once made, cannot be undone. They foreclose the possibility of making other choices and thus they determine future events.

Gerda Lerner

Admittedly, although ive heard of Auschwitz I couldnt for the life of me name another concentration camp. But i guess you cant expect people to remember names etc. As long as they know what went on and the basics i dont think the names of specific concentration camps is all that important to everyone. However I was initially shocked that only 40 sumthing % was it? knew Auschwitz was a concentration camp.

when a map is named, and they are looking in the wrong part of the world?

"Why should i learn about the first 'great war' which could and should have been avoided?"

Sorry to be off-topically picky- though the overal theme of this thread is historical ignorance so it is ok- but what exactly do you mean by this? Strikes me that that war could only have been avoided if everyone suddenly decided to be really nice to each other. Not as if it began due to some terrible avoidable mistake or anything. It is one of the most historically inevitable wars ever seen.

i wouldn't

It is an old amusement to point out such geographical ignorance, along with the old lines like "Scotland... isn't that part of London?" and so on, but how directly can you show a study which shows this? Fact is most Americans know that Iraq is in the 'Middle-East' and it gets rather more fuzzy from there. But that is true for most average people.

Bully for you. Most people still would.

Most people couldn't assemble a map of even the nations of Europe alone. I sure as hell couldn't. As soon as you get out past Poland and down into the Balkans most people west of Berlin get totally lost.

No, A war was inevitable, a war of that scale could easily have been avoided. Blame the aliiance system.

Ok, austria wants an apology from serbia, they dont get it theres a war. There had been wars in that area for years beforehand and serbia had come out as the most powerful and austria didnt like this, they wanted some form of excuse to crush serbia, they got it that day in sarajevo.
Did Russia need to say they would get involved?
did Germany need to say they would get involved? Did germany need to attack France for no reason other than the Kaiser's resentment at Germany's defeat in some war in the 1870s?
Was the naval race necessary?

so you mean poland is easy to be located?

you really think that the assation on that prince was the reason of war?
it was only {don't know a word}, and the war would have started anyway, sooner or later

Let me see... pretty much, pretty much, pretty much and in context, most probably.

Your analysis of that is pretty basic but these are all problems stretching back a hundred years or more before the war started. Your use of the term 'avoidable', therefore is, as I say, coming down to "there needn't have been a war if everyone was always nice to each other."

Unlike WWII, where we can decidedly point a things and say "There... we could have stopped it happening there." Even that is debatable but there is a point to it.

-

Clovie, yes, of course; it is just the other side of Germany. History is very clear on that point so people are more likely to know it.

The Archduke- Its not the reason the war started, a war was coming, but if everybody hadnt been itching for it, then perhaps it could have been avoided instead of everybody waiting for the first conflict to come along and placing their bets and casting their votes

cry right, but things like this can't be avoided with people being pissed for almost no reason, with the wrong people at power and...and... well and everything... that's the point, where you can search for everything that is wrong in the world, you find so many things that you get angry.... and when you realize you can't do ANYTHING about them, although you wish you had the power to....it's not enough and you're too stuck up in your prosperity to give away your life to the fight against all of that and you can't decide which you feel worst about, so you curl up in your bed feeling sorry for all of them and yourself, that you can't do anything.... and wish you were dead

weep

sorta like that

That is a great statement Storm. I absolutely agree.

The Inkeeper> "No, A war was inevitable, a war of that scale could easily have been avoided. Blame the aliiance system."

Too many nations wanted more land and there were too many ethnic differences. Do you really see that the war could have been avoided?

As if anyone seriously needed that first statement as clarification!

It was politically unstoppable.

Nearly all wars can be avoided. It should never be the answer. I dont think each country seeing how many of the other countries people they can kill and then whoever gives in first is the weakest and therefore the loser is a good way to solve differences

Clovie asked if i thought the reason for war was that, i said no, i do believe that that needed to be clarified, did you even read what i was replying to?

Well... people are hardly going to argue that, are they? No-one is going to say "war is a good way to solve things". But that's not really the point; whether a war could have been avoided or nor is a different deal.

i think every war can be avoided and should've been avoided.... a war only means involving more people in a difference of opinions than were necessary....
people that didn't want to be involved in the first place

Yes I did. I thought that statement of Clovie's in itself took care of the matter.

I was just distancing myself from the idea that i believe the assasination was the whole reason for war, as its simply untrue.

N-S: I dont think all wars could have been avoided, some had to be fought.

I think with the comment of most Americans being unable to pick out Iraq on a map, it was meant that the map was labeled...and I've heard that before, too. And I'm really not surprised, being as the average American doesn't even know the names of all 50 states. I'm no history buff, and quite frankly I suck at geography, but I could probably locate most, if not all, countries in Western Europe. East of Poland and I'm pretty lost, though...though we're off that point, now, aren't we.

WWI was pretty much inevitable...WWII on the other hand could likely have been curtailed early had the other countries not appeased Hitler. It could also had been avoided if Hitler wasn't elected Chancellor...or if the rest of Europe and the US hadn't placed the blame for WWI on Germany and forced them to pay war reparations and totally plunged their economy into a huge depression...in other words, had WWI not been the magnitude that it was, WWII probably wouldn't have happened. But on the other hand, maybe it still would have. We'll never know what would have happened had one event taken place differently.

But all this stuff is in the past, so why do we bother learning about it, discussing it? So we can learn from the past, see what past mistakes were made, and try to not make them again. If another world war were to break out in this day, it would be more catastrophic than most people could imagine, due to the weapons available...how many countries have nuclear weapons? The last thing we need or want is nuclear war.

(and just a note...it's been 2 years since I've had any sort of history class so my knowledge of WWI and WWII is a bit rusty)

god, don't call me N-S.... please, that could be taken in a very wrong way


well, for what were they fought? mostly for hate, for the idea of owning country....
i know, wars had been fought since...yea...i guess you can say forever here.... but still for what? it's normal to have arguments....
but when someone or a couple of people have enough power and land to fight a "war" than that isn't normal at all....
it's not normal for humans to have responsibility for so many lifes....to have that sort of power
why are there arguments of ENTIRE countries? that can't be, it's always just a couple of people or the "pride for a country".... why, it's just one place on the earth they are living.... i feel no pride whatsoever for my country.... (germany - btw)
what was my point? argh, i don't care I'm going to bed!

sorry, it's late and i can't think so clearly now, so i probably screwed up a few of those sentences.... i guess, i didn't make so much sense.... perhaps tomorrow... ah, crap it is tomorrow

night

That makes me sad and mad my grandfather dead in one of those death camps!How could they say something like that.JM

what the hell's a nazi?

Surely you jest.

I think WWII was both good and bad--bad because of the Holocaust and the murdering and death, but good because it pulled the U.S. out of the Great Depression and made us a world power.

I'm sure he is FeceMan. Let's take things lightly here.

Anyways, as I mention this isn't to criticize anyone is just to obseve that History can't be misintrepet if it isn't told correctly. Of course this doesn't mean everyone should memorize tons of volumes of books on WWII (I would cuz I love books), but instead be more acquainted with the symbols of WWII. And Auschwitz is one of them.

I've heard on all of those places....On the other hand, we read Night in school, and studied WWII over 4 months. As for Salamanca, Talavera, Vitoria, Badajoz, Ciudad Rodrigo, Almieda, Fuentes de Onoro, the Corunna Retreat, Waterloo, and Trafalger, I've heard of 'em all, and I'm American. On the other hand, I know Bernard Cornwell and have read all his books....

This absolutely DOESN'T shock me.
Historical facts are pretty unknown to most kids and teenagers these days because History has the name of being boring and redundant. (do blaim the teachers for this!)

I agree with that...

I can say without a doubt that I was bored mindless in history class. But when the teacher does nothing but present endless notes...AND speaks in a monotone...what can you expect? I'm amazed I didn't sleep all class, and that I actually learned anything!

funny, I was bored mindless in every class

well, if he does that, no doubt that no matter what the subject is, it would be dull as hell... but if you got a good teacher that knows what (s)he is talking about, it can be fun

But thats why we need to know about this type of stuff. History is one of the most important subjects there is. Because its repeats itself. Someone who doesnt understand history, doesnt see when something is coming. Hitler is a perfect example. He didnt realize that he was parallel the Napoleon when he was marching into Russia. If people dont know history, this world will decend into chaos.

Not that it already hasnt.

Good teachers can make almost any class interesting, especially history. For most people, though, history isn't relevant unless its something directly involved with their past.

That bit about Iraq is crap. That's an updated version of a remark from the Vietnam War era.......

you don't have to preach to me about history Dwarfdude

Perhaps Hitler was familiar with history and thus marched into Russia knowing what he was doing? Often leaders of today take solis in the mistakes of past leaders and try not to make the same mistakes while following in their footsteps. Eventually someone will get it right.

I know, I was using your post as back up.



As the old saying goes, Russia has two extra generals, January and Febuary.

just to make sure

it must be clear by now that it's still a stupid idea to go during the winter

There's always gonna be people that want war and as long as these crazy folk are around people that want peace and freedom will have to fight back. So, I guess, some wars have to be fought.

As for the Auschwitz business. I got taught about it somewhere along the line. Can't remember where, when or by whom.

and Auschwitz is still under "modern history"

For obvious reasons, Im sorta glad that so many people havnt heard of Auschwitz

cant hide the facts of history. Dont see the obvious reason here

why glad? they need to know this y'know

Maybe. However, I'd rather my country was remebered for better reasons, such as Beer, than Nazis.

frodo, if ANY person blaims the holocaust on a german, the person needs to get his facts straight.
I checked your profile and tell me how do you relate directly to this? not at all! so why should anyone take offense to you or your country?

Your country will be rembered for boring football

Don't try to take over Russia unless you can get it done quickly.

and lousy beer

That's something I never understood about Hitler's military tactics. He was educated in History and he was certainly aware of what had happen to Napoleon's armies when they invaded Russia in 1812. Yet, despite his knowledge of the severe winter conditions in Russia he decided to invaded. He had an agreement with Stalin so there really was no need for him invade Russia. I know that Germany was divided between Communist and Nazism and that Hitler wanted to crush the communist ideology. But to scale a large attack on Russia base on ideology seems a bit confusing.

as QGJ said: Do what you think you can not do.

It was unexpected of him to do so and he hoped that would make him get the victory

I see that point. Is basically saying "caught them with their pants down". But I just think is lot more complicated than that. There had to be other factors beside military strategy and ideology.

or perhaps he went just insane with the idea to conquer the world