A majority of secondary school students do not know what anti-semitism means, while many have an understanding of the Holocaust that is based on myths, inaccuracies and misconceptions.
The findings of a study involving more than 8,000 students aged 11 to 18 have been labelled as “deeply troubling” by Holocaust education experts.
The research, published by the UCL Centre for Holocaust Education, is the largest study of its kind and runs to 286 pages – with a wealth of recommendations for teachers, schools and policy-makers.
It finds that only 37 per cent of the respondents knew what anti-semitism was – meaning that while students knew that the Jews were the primary victims of the Holocaust, a majority could not explain in any depth why they were murdered.
Furthermore, when asked what happened when the British government knew about the mass murder of the Jews, more than a third of the students believed that it led to Britain declaring war on Germany.
A quarter thought that Britain knew nothing of the killings until the war’s end, while 18 per cent thought that the British government drew up rescue plans. In fact, the government never made it a war aim to save the Jews of Europe – something only seven per cent of students knew.
More than 40 per cent of students also incorrectly believed that mass killing began immediately after Hitler’s appointment as Chancellor in January 1933.
Furthermore, few students understood the role of collaborating regimes and fewer than 10 per cent suggested that the German people bore any responsibility for the genocide – most students saw the Nazis as an elite group loyal to Hitler rather than a political party with significant, broad-based support across the German population.
A vast majority of students also thought that German soldiers and police were shot if they refused to carry out orders to kill Jewish people, when there is in fact very little evidence of this happening.
Also, many students thought that Jews constituted a significant proportion of the German population during the 1930s. Only nine per cent correctly identified the pre-war Jewish population to be less than one per cent, while 74 per cent overestimated this population by 15 to 30 times.
A summary of the research, published on the Centre for Holocaust Education website, states: “Fascinatingly, students across all age groups framed ‘the Holocaust’ in remarkably similar ways. Their descriptions focused almost exclusively on what perpetrators did to their victims.
“Overwhelmingly, the recurring refrain was ‘Hitler and the Nazis killed the Jews in the camps’. Other aspects, such as the scale of the Holocaust, when and where it happened, or – crucially – why and how it could have happened, were rarely touched upon.
“Oversimplifications, myths and misconceptions have not been effectively addressed in the classroom. Perhaps this is because they do not get in the way of a core message of ‘lessons from the Holocaust’ which has prevailed in the last 25 years. You do not need to know very much about the Holocaust to agree passionately that it demonstrates the ‘dangers of hatred, prejudice and racism’.
“Our research bears this out: young people agree strongly with the message, and they think the Holocaust is something we should never forget. The problem is, in common with much of British society, it appears that most do not know or understand very much about it.”
The summary adds: “Many of our findings are surprising, some deeply troubling, all will help to shape the future of Holocaust education for years to come.”
One of the report’s authors, Professor Stuart Foster, executive director at the Centre for Holocaust Education, said the findings were not a criticism of pupils or teachers, but “a consequence of the misunderstandings and misconceptions surrounding the Holocaust”.
He warned that the Holocaust was not a curriculum priority in many schools while exam syllabuses were also playing a role in reducing the time spent studying the subject.
He said: “Despite clear government support for learning about the Holocaust, for many schools it still does not constitute a curriculum priority and typically it is reduced to ‘learning the lessons’ – the dangers of hatred and racism – without detailed study of the history.
“Little curriculum time for 11 to 14-year-olds is devoted to exploring in more depth why and how the Holocaust happened. Even more worryingly, our examination boards have chosen to reduce the Holocaust to a very small, optional element of some GCSE papers, and it has almost disappeared from the history courses of A level examinations.”
Paul Salmons, programme director at the Centre for Holocaust Education, added: “As a society, we remember without knowing, we draw lessons without understanding and we miss many of the most profound meanings that could emerge from studying the Holocaust because we avoid its most difficult questions.
“In a world of on-going crimes against humanity it is vital that young people have the knowledge and understanding of how such events can occur. Improved teaching and learning about the Holocaust can help students to think critically and independently about these vital questions.”
Among the report’s recommendations is a call for quality-assured teacher CPD to focus giving young people deeper understanding. It continues: “A simplistic ‘lessons from’ approach to the Holocaust should be avoided. It risks becoming tokenistic when not actually grounded in substantive historical knowledge and it may prevent critical and deeper understanding of the Holocaust.”
A distinction also needs to be made between “commemoration” and “education”, it states, adding: “Meaningful education entails knowing and understanding key aspects of the Holocaust, and grappling with difficult and complex issues.”
The report comes as the 150th student visit to the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camps has taken place. The Lessons from Auschwitz programme, run by the Holocaust Educational Trust (HET), has now taken more than 27,000 students to the sites since 1999.
Karen Pollock, chief executive of the HET, said the report makes clear that Holocaust education work is “more important than ever”.
Further information
- For more on the research, visit www.holocausteducation.org.uk/research/young-people-understand-holocaust/
- For more on the HET, including its Lessons from Auschwitz project, visit www.het.org.uk and www.lfaproject.org.uk