I think sometimes when we study the Holocaust in isolation, we get the impression that this was all the result of one man's evil, or perhaps the evil of a select and isolated group. But here's the thing: the Nazis were hardly the only ones coming up with some really disturbing ideas about "racial fitness." From the late nineteenth centuries (post-Darwin) up to the Holocaust, these ideas were widely accepted.
Throughout the 1920s, the U.S. was actually the "world leader" in Eugenics (the "science" of good breeding/biological fitness). Forced sterilization was practiced in many U.S. states and approved of by the U.S. Supreme Court. You can read about it here. In fact, in North Carolina, this continued into the late 1960s; they targeted lower-class African Americans. You can read about that here.
Concentration camps weren't invented by the Germans either; they were used first by the British during the Boer War in South Africa. (Though these weren't death camps, many people died of starvation and disease inside them). --thanks to Gabbi for reminding me of this one.
Nor was the Holocaust the first mass genocide. The Armenian genocide, which happened during WWI, was a systematic effort by the Ottoman Turks to eradicate the Armenian people. 1 million Armenians lost their lives, and the Turkish government still denies the whole thing ever happened. (Google it.)
So the Holocaust is exceptional in its scale, but not necessarily in other ways. Given this, why do you think we focus so much on the Holocaust? Do you think removing the Holocaust from this late nineteenth and early twentieth century context (wherein the ideas that motivated it are not that unusual) is a bad idea?
Well the one thing the Holocaust in the 1940s has that sets it from all the mentioned conflicts is that it was encompassed in World War. Jewish people from throughout Europe were being tortured and killed. Not like the Armenian eradication which, yes was in World War, but not to the extent ofleading Axis power who originally had the upper hand in the war. (Sorry if my grammar is bad my phone is being stupid and will not let me go back).
ReplyDeleteAlso, World War 2 was the direct predecessor to the Cold War (skipping the Korean War of the early 1950s) and unlike WWII, the US was the MAJOR "good guy" faction. In wars and throughout history, most leaders and thinkers often look to the past to predict the future. What was the most recent event? 6 million innocent Jewish people killed. Stalin is often viewed just as bad or even sometimes WORSE (maybe because we fought Stalin more) than Hitler. We predicted nukes like Hiroshima and (I forgot the second city my brain is poop at midnight), as well as eradications and crazy apocalyptic theories in response to the start of the Cold War, based on WW2 and the Holocaust.
The Holocaust is heavily focused upon simply because it is the most drastic form of anything of it's kind. Genocides occurred throughout the century in Armenia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Rwanda, but the Holocaust had the highest casualties. Another factor may be that the Jews are more sympathetic than people in other genocides, because one probably knows more Jewish people than Rwandans. The other thing to take into account is that there was a World War going on that America was involved in, and we were trying to stop the Nazis, so naturally Americans heard the most about that specific genocide because they were a direct enemy.
ReplyDeleteRemoving it from the 19th-20th century context is obviously a bad idea because it allows other genocides to be looked over, making them seem less important, and maybe even sweeping under the rug the Eugenics that were going on in America. Like the question above stated america had Eugenics and believed in "good breeding", so pushing all the blame on the Germans allows us to be viewed in a better light because what they did was so much worse. This makes every other terrible genocide look subpar to the Holocaust, and is unfair to the people who lost their lives. It should be well known that Eugenics played a major role in the 19th-20th centuries because it gives us a better understanding of history, but instead it feels as though we are taught that Nazis were the bad guys that did the worst deed in history that nothing can compare to.
I agree with the bottom part of the comment above mine in that the reason that we, here in the US focus so much on the holocaust because it allows us to disregard all the bad things that we and others have done. The holocaust as said previously wasn't the worst but the thing for us is that the US is on the winning and deemed, 'the good guys', when in reality our country has done those things in its past as well, the other thing is that it glorifies some countries like ours, so we want to focus on it enough to make everyone think of us as heroes, when in fact there are other things that if we focused on would make the US look bad and that is the last thing the government wants to do, they do all these disturbing things and then gloss it over with something such as the holocaust and act as if it is okay. For example, when the government sent a team to capture Osama, they shot him, which is highly illegal but it was glossed over and revealed as an instance where we are heroes, the government will only say good things about the country and will deny things that make it look bad, it isn't much different in other countries like Mrs. Stuart said about the Turks.
ReplyDeleteI think that we focus so much on the Holocaust because it is the only genocide that effected us. This is simply because we were throw into the war after the bombing and the United States was able to see what Hitler was doing firsthand. Ms. Stuart has even said that the course is extremely Eurocentric so it does make sense that we only learn about things that affected all of Europe. As Nick and Andrew have said the Holocaust was also paired up with World War II which was experienced by all of Europe and unlike the other genocides that MS. Stuart talks about above the majority of the world was aware of what Hitler was doing. The Holocaust also had the most casualties and hurt the most people. I do find it odd that we have never talked about what the United States did to try and keep the survival of the fittest. This could be because the article didn't mention anything about death to the "inferiors".
ReplyDeleteI think removing the topic makes it look much worse. Simply because now we look at the Holocaust as the worst thing that has ever happened but at the time, as I was surprised to learn in the documentary, Hitler did do some things to help Germany when he came to power. If we were to take the Holocaust out of context and put it into our time now it would be seen as ridiculous but during the 19th and 20th century many of these concepts had been adapted by others
I think that another reason the Holocaust might be more famous is because it could be used as a reason for going to war. In WWI the countries went to war because of Nationalism and Militarism, and the war didn't really accomplish anything. So I think that the stopping the Holocaust was a form of validation for the war (even though the Holocaust followed a totally different timeline). Instead of being another border war, WWII was for liberty and justice, so on and so forth. I think that the Holocaust is the most famous of all similar events because it was not only the largest and extremely horrific, but it validated the Allies attack against Germany.
ReplyDeleteI think we focus so much on the Holocaust partially because of its massive scale and partially because it was tied to WWII. Even though there had been other mass genocides this was definitely the biggest and with the war it became well known that Hitler was persecuting Jews on such a massive scale. The war drew attention to the subject and because it was kind of a part of the war it became more prominent than other genocides. I also think we focus on the Holocaust and not on the sterilizations in the US because we can call genocides evil easier if Hitler did them than if they occurred in our own country.
ReplyDeleteI think that removing it from the 19th and 20th century is a bad idea. It makes it harder to understand the reasons behind the animosity and racism without having the ideals of the time in mind. By keeping it in context one may better understand the reasons behind it (even if they are still pretty messed up) and one can also see how this was occurring in other countries so it'd be easier to draw connections there too.
While I agree with the above posts, I also feel that the Holocaust features so prominently in our history classes because it was something that directly involved us. We had to get involved in the war, and the consequences of that were dramatic. Our losses were heavier than ever before, which attracted the attention of the public. This made WWII 'our' nation's problem, not just Europe's. So when the true horror of the Holocaust was revealed to the public it immediately garnered attention because it was 'our problem' (not to mention we had a large number of Jews living in New York at the time). I feel like events such as the Armenian genocide don't get as much attention because we were never involved in them, nor did they ever really concern us to any extent. While that may seem a bit egocentric, I feel like it is a plausible explanation.
ReplyDeleteI think removing the Holocaust from the 19th and 20th centuries would be a bad idea. Even though we don't learn about the Armenian genocide, the lesson that we learn from the Holocaust is essentially the same thing: Persecution of a people based solely on religion or social status is wrong, and the ways in which they were treated are wrong.
I think we focus so much on the Holocaust because Jews aren't a race, Judaism is a religion that anyone can believe in and practice. The Holocaust is different from other genocides because it's not just trying to get rid of certain people, Hitler was trying to destroy the belief and faith in God. To attempt to destroy a religion and all of its followers is a huge, radical notion especially, for a world whose morals are heavily based off of religion.
ReplyDeleteI also agree with Paige. I think the Holocaust was used to justify WWII and used as propaganda, glorifying the Allies as the "good guys" and "heroes." Treazure also brings up a good point about our world view being Eurocentric, and because of this, we focus on the positive and negative events in Europe and how they influenced our way of thinking.
Just a clarification re: Lindsey's point above. The persecution of the Jews by the Nazis was racially motivated, not religiously motivated. Hitler did think of Jews as being a separate race (and recent research suggests there are certain genetic markers of Jewishness because Jews were persecuted throughout history--largely for religious reasons up through the late 19th century when Europeans became obsessed with race--and thus tended to marry and reproduce with other Jews). While Hitler was certainly willing to play on religious hatred/bigotry, his real interest was racial/ethnic purity (i.e. eugenics).
ReplyDeleteI think we focus so much on the Holocaust for a couple of reasons; First off: we do want to be seen as the "good guys" for ending the war, and freeing the Jews
ReplyDeleteand secondly: it takes attention off the similar things we were doing in the US, as well as the things our allies were doing.
I think it would be an absolutely horrible idea to leave Eugenics out of the 1800's/1900's because it makes the entire ordeal really hard to comprehend. Up until now I never knew that the US played major roles in "sterilization",or that it was happening all around during this time. When I first learned about the Holocaust I just thought Hitler was really crazy,and brainwashed a lot of people to agree with his views; not that the idea that certain aspects of diversity made all sorts of people inferior to the "superior race" was widely held,and this is definitely not a good thing but it makes the Holocaust make a little more sense, in my opinion. So basically I just feel like it's stupid to leave this entire "science" out of this period in history,because it kind of puts all the blame of such a tragic event on one person (Hitler). Furthermore, I think the only reason Eugenics isn't talked about in normal curriculum's is because the US is afraid for it's skeleton's to fall out the closet; so if the US wasn't guilty for their actions at this time the subject would be discussed more often and aid in trying to understand the Holocaust.
Our culture makes a huge deal about the Holocaust. Lifers at country day study it 4-5 times before graduating. When I was in 5th grade, Mr. O'Gorman told me that we learn about the Holocaust because history has a scary way of repeating itself. I agree with that, but it doesn't explain why we have to study it so many times. We learn about the Holocaust because we were the heroes. We learn about the Civil War because we got rid of slavery. We learn about the Revolutionary War because we fought for justice, freedom, etc. But we didn't learn anything about the triangle trade until this year. Like I had no idea that our entire nation was based on brutal slavery since the very beginning. I also didn't know that we oppressed Japanese Americans after Pearl Harbor, or that we forced sterilization, and I still don't know anything about the Korean or Vietnam war. I think Ms. Stuart is bringing up an important point; educated people know about these things, but what our school system teaches the average American is biased. I think this is scary, because the people who run schools and institutions are educated, which means they don't teach these things on purpose.
ReplyDeleteThe Holocaust is just the most well-known example of this. We know about it because it was recent, its well-documented, and it wasn't our fault. We purposefully make the Nazi's, a select group of people, out to be monsters so we can put all the blame on them. Then we can pretend that we didn't share the same ideas they did. The same thing happened in WWI: Britain and France didn't want to take the blame for their part in the war, so they blamed it on Germany. You'll learn a different version of history everywhere you study. I think this is wrong, but it is human nature to try to cover up and forget things we are ashamed of. Its cowardly, to be sure, but thats how it is. That said, since we have this knowledge, its possible to change schooling systems, but until then, we should at least educate ourselves so we know a truthful version of history.
To address some of the comments above: I think that prior to WWII, its important that we understand that jewish people existed in nearly every european nation. They participated in the gov, they owned local businesses, and therefore, I don’t think that jewish people should be considered to be a separate race. Hitler persecuted jews from Poland, Romania, Germany, Russia, and several other european countries. Religious bigotry was common throughout Europe, but I do not feel the jews were considered a separate race. For example, as the ghetto walls were built in german cities, it was mandatory that jewish people wore the Star of David on their arm at all times to specifically identify themselves to other non-jews. Without this star, people could not tell their religious beliefs. Hitler discriminated against Polish people, Russian people, and his own german people because of their religion, not their race. The genetic differences that existed among jewish people that lived throughout Europe may be called differences in an ethnic group, not a difference in race. Hitler, a failed artist, mistakenly identified the jews as a race to justify their extermination, but that does not necessarily mean that they are a separate race. The genetic markers may exist among jews because of thousands of years of selective genetic isolation.
ReplyDeleteTo actually answer the question: The size of the genocide, 6 million people, distinguishes the Holocaust from a lot of other massacres, but we as americans tend to “forget” about horrific things that we did to people. like gabbi said, schools in america choose not to teach people about the faults of our own country, like the slave trade. Secondly, the spread of jewish people throughout the world, specifically in america, allows us to sympathize with their history of suffering. jewish people are a part of our community.