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Lack of empathy, or just history?

8ball said:
I’ve just bolded the bits that seem to me perhaps uniquely horrific about this particular genocide under discussion.
Click to expand...
That's the sort of thing I used think too, but on reflection the Soviet response of casual, brutal, arbitrary indifference seems worse. Or does it? I can't decide.
 
Silas Loom said:
Yes. It was the concrete railings and barbed wire that got me, at Birkenau. They were so precisely placed and the fencing in general was so well engineered that I had just the same thought as you describe your mum having: someone planned all this, someone with a lot of civil engineering expertise sat down and worked out how best to design a death camp for killing people from my ethnocultural group, giving careful consideration to the bend of the railings and how best to secure the wires. It got me worse than the shoes.
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Manhattan project no one knows their cog in the machine. Power structures can ensure this plays out. Cos no one would do it knowing their part would they.
 
Kevbad the Bad said:
That's the sort of thing I used think too, but on reflection the Soviet response of casual, brutal, arbitrary indifference seems worse. Or does it? I can't decide.
Click to expand...

Not sure, but I think it is less of a unique feature. There was casual, brutal arbitrary indifference involved with the genocide of the North American First Nations.
 
Cloo said:


This teacher, and others apparently, is complaining that kids seem really unempathetic about the Holocaust, that they joke about it, etc.

But I wonder whether this is not lack of empathy but simply that this is really old history to kids. People my age and older tend to assume that because there's film footage it's 'modern history' and will feel immediate, but I don't think it will necessarily feel that way to kids and the fact is it is quite old history now. Obviously it's still incredibly important but I'm not sure we can expect reverence or immediate empathy from most kids.
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Think it’s that plus the speed of information these days makes even things from a few years ago feel much long ago. Right now for teenagers September 11 is history, and talked about the way we talk about the Romans etc…
 
I think it was that the vilifying of the ‘other’ wasn’t hidden and how much the media such as it was then played a great part in that, as it does now, whether that’s through the daily ghastly or the special niche YouTube channel, and suddenly ‘these people’ whoever they are, have been rendered dehumanised, and can therefore be added to things that you wish you didn’t have to deal with, along with dog shit and other inconveniences, moreover they’re taking your precious resources. So if they’re being conveniently dealt with by the people in charge that’s one less thing to worry about while you’re trying to get your child to eat it’s dinner or your partner to feel a bit less depressed about their job, meanwhile you’re not sure if you should go to doctor about this pain or mole or your dads confusion
 
Kid_Eternity said:
Think it’s that plus the speed of information these days makes even things from a few years ago feel much long ago. Right now for teenagers September 11 is history, and talked about the way we talk about the Romans etc…
Click to expand...

If you take David Bowie’s first album and go just as far back again, you land before the start of the first world war.

When I was a kid my grandparents and other older folk would tell me about the World Wars and the Holocaust.

Understandable that the timescales feel very different to kids today.
 
On the matter of custom-made tools for genocide and the process being carried out on an industrial scale, I can't help thinking of the slave ships designed and built (or rebuilt) for that specific purpose, and manacles and shackles being mass-produced in European factories for the transporting of entire villages at a time.

But for me the really horrifying thing about mass murder and genocide isn't really the specific people it's done to, the method or the pretexts it's done with, or the ideology of the organisers. It's that in order to happen, normal everyday people have to join in; and, normal ordinary people DO join in. Deck hands, drivers, cooks, paper pushers, guards. Potentially our own neighbours and work colleagues if it happened again, happened here. I don't doubt it for a moment.

I think the real lesson of the holocaust - not numbers of victims but an idea: never again - if it was ever learned at all rather than just being parroted, is actually in danger of being forgotten in this world.
 
For me, the difference between the Holocaust and, say, the Armenian genocide or the genocide that is happening right now in Gaza is intent.

The Armenian genocide and the Gaza genocide share certain characteristics. They are acts of ethnic cleansing. You people, leave now. Or die. We don't care which, and we don't care where you go as long as it's somewhere other than here. Casual, callous disregard for the lives of people you don't really deem fully human.

But the Holocaust was the logical conclusion of an ideology and set of beliefs that certain 'races', including Jews and Romani, are a blight on the planet and need to be exterminated. Not just 'we don't want you, go away' or 'we want your land, go away', but 'we think you are evil, you must die'.

For me, that's where the real horror lies, and I don't necessarily think it lacks any equivalents in history - Rwanda perhaps is a near equivalent: 'you are Tutsi, you must die' - but many other atrocities are definitely still genocide while lacking this particular intent. And then there was the measured, calculated way they went about it. A killing frenzy like that in Rwanda is in some important ways less horrifying than a calm, organised, bureaucratic extermination.

ETA: Just to add to this. I am aware that this is a Eurocentric view. Or more accurately a Eurocentric gut feeling. Someone from East Asia or Africa or South America may have very different gut feelings. And no reason why they shouldn't.
 
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mojo pixy said:
On the matter of custom-made tools for genocide and the process being carried out on an industrial scale, I can't help thinking of the slave ships designed and built (or rebuilt) for that specific purpose, and manacles and shackles being mass-produced in European factories for the transporting of entire villages at a time.

But for me the really horrifying thing about mass murder and genocide isn't really the specific people it's done to, the method or the pretexts it's done with, or the ideology of the organisers. It's that in order to happen, normal everyday people have to join in; and, normal ordinary people DO join in. Deck hands, drivers, cooks, paper pushers, guards. Potentially our own neighbours and work colleagues if it happened again, happened here. I don't doubt it for a moment.

I think the real lesson of the holocaust - not numbers of victims but an idea: never again - if it was ever learned at all rather than just being parroted, is actually in danger of being forgotten in this world.
Click to expand...
I wonder how many of those ship manufacturers, deck hands and shackle producers claimed ignorance once slavery was abolished? How many of them were shocked when reflecting, swore 'never again', and used the remainders of their lives to warn, educate and talk about their active roles and complacency?

I see very little of the latter...esp not in my family. 'Didn't know' and 'the others were bigger players' provided for a clear consciousness, untill old age kicked in and the old slogans and songs re-surfaced.

Still, not many ever investigated what had happened to their old neighbours, much more profitable to take over flats, shops and workshops, for zero costs....getting away with it meant to keep schtumm and to not dig to deep.

How the next generation, the one after and the one after is supposed to progressively learn and feel empathy i don't know.
To listen to the victims and their horrific stories is one thing and very important, but the perpetrators still form a silent majority who don't want to be found out...

And yes, i do have friends whose grandparents were in the small minority who were swept away and were part of a horrific movement. Yet they learned and vowed to teach and educate.
Belonging to a peace movement and being active anti fascists was only a part of their ways to deal with their past.
They were also incredibly frank and honest.
But they were a minority.

'Never again' is nothing more than a slogan to make us feel better about ourselves and our past, in most cases anyway.
 
klang said:
I wonder how many of those ship manufacturers, deck hands and shackle producers claimed ignorance once slavery was abolished? How many of them were shocked when reflecting, swore 'never again', and used the remainders of their lives to warn, educate and talk about their active roles and complacency?

I see very little of the latter...esp not in my family. 'Didn't know' and 'the others were bigger players' provided for a clear consciousness, untill old age kicked in and the old slogans and songs re-surfaced.

Still, not many ever investigated what had happened to their old neighbours, much more profitable to take over flats, shops and workshops, for zero costs....getting away with it meant to keep schtumm and to not dig to deep.

How the next generation, the one after and the one after is supposed to progressively learn and feel empathy i don't know.
To listen to the victims and their horrific stories is one thing and very important, but the perpetrators still form a silent majority who don't want to be found out...

And yes, i do have friends whose grandparents were in the small minority who were swept away and were part of a horrific movement. Yet they learned and vowed to teach and educate.
Belonging to a peace movement and being active anti fascists was only a part of their ways to deal with their past.
They were also incredibly frank and honest.
But they were a minority.

'Never again' is nothing more than a slogan to make us feel better about ourselves and our past, in most cases anyway.
Click to expand...
www.bbc.co.uk

BBC Two - Clydebuilt: The Ships That Made the Commonwealth, Robert E Lee

The story of the Robert E Lee, one of the most famous blockade-running paddle steamers.
www.bbc.co.uk www.bbc.co.uk

Was an excellent series not sure where you'd find it ...but this post made me think of the Robert E Lee episose
 
klang said:
I wonder how many of those ship manufacturers, deck hands and shackle producers claimed ignorance once slavery was abolished? How many of them were shocked when reflecting, swore 'never again', and used the remainders of their lives to warn, educate and talk about their active roles and complacency?

I see very little of the latter...esp not in my family. 'Didn't know' and 'the others were bigger players' provided for a clear consciousness, untill old age kicked in and the old slogans and songs re-surfaced.

Still, not many ever investigated what had happened to their old neighbours, much more profitable to take over flats, shops and workshops, for zero costs....getting away with it meant to keep schtumm and to not dig to deep.

How the next generation, the one after and the one after is supposed to progressively learn and feel empathy i don't know.
To listen to the victims and their horrific stories is one thing and very important, but the perpetrators still form a silent majority who don't want to be found out...

And yes, i do have friends whose grandparents were in the small minority who were swept away and were part of a horrific movement. Yet they learned and vowed to teach and educate.
Belonging to a peace movement and being active anti fascists was only a part of their ways to deal with their past.
They were also incredibly frank and honest.
But they were a minority.

'Never again' is nothing more than a slogan to make us feel better about ourselves and our past, in most cases anyway.
Click to expand...
Yes, I agree and see that
Sue said:
Erm, wrong thread..?
Click to expand...
not wrong thread, Sue, but probably clumsily expressed.
I was thinking about how we buy things from places we put some sort of trust or confidence in, or otherwise decide that it’s ’not My problem’ and don’t consider the working conditions or daily life of the people who’s work it is to ensure we get that comfort; Or whether they even want to be there or might have agency or freedom to be anywhere else
None of which is appropriate for this thread so apols
 
8ball said:
Not sure, but I think it is less of a unique feature. There was casual, brutal arbitrary indifference involved with the genocide of the North American First Nations.
Click to expand...
A genocide that is ongoing, according to indigenous activists. The racism is so baked into that society that it isn't even noticed. Nor has much of it been done indifferently, over the centuries.
 
I think I've told this story before, but my gran had a neighbour who was listening to the radio in her kitchen one day when there was a story about the camps - I think it may even have been the Dimbleby broadcast about Belsen.

The story, as I was told it, was that my gran's neighbour picked up her radio, carried it out to the back yard and put it in the bin. . .

My point is that in those days people weren't inured to that sort of thing by a constant 24/7 stream of horror via all manner of devices. . .
 
8ball said:
If you take David Bowie’s first album and go just as far back again, you land before the start of the first world war.

When I was a kid my grandparents and other older folk would tell me about the World Wars and the Holocaust.

Understandable that the timescales feel very different to kids today.
Click to expand...
Exactly this.

And it's harder in UK, because you don't seem to teach history in the schools anymore.
 
History teacher here - It’s interesting you mention empathy because in the study of history, empathy is much more than just ‘putting yourself in someone else’s shoes’.

The problem with that is when you say it to a young person, they transplant their own 2024 experience, with their own feelings, with their own cultural attachments and belief systems and try to pretend they, the 2024 young person was alive then, when that’s not the case. As a history teacher it’s about explaining that there were different beliefs and values and historical contexts which inform and explain past events.

That’s why when we teach the Nazis and the Holocaust you go back to the Nazi consolidation of power, the growth of the police state, early attacks on Jewish people like the boycott of Jewish shops, Nuremberg Laws, Kristallnacht etc. It’s all about providing that context where an event as horrific as the Holocaust could take place.

I know in England it’s a statutory requirement to teach the Holocaust, but that is often done in PSHE class, and may be delivered by a non-specialist. You run the risk of treating the Holocaust as a stand-alone event devoid of context which is not how it should be done.

As an aside, I would totally welcome all these uninformed questions and comments from students. It gives an opportunity for everyone to discuss why they think like that and to widen the debate and come to informed conclusions. That’s all part of the learning process.
 
What surprised me was Germany...where they are legally required to teach how Hitler was a bit of a wrong un.. doesn't teach WW1. My GCSE history had, in part, the origins of WW2 stemming from WW1

(Edited coz of real bd predictive text error)
 
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Just reading this and thought of this thread... Individual stories are much more likely to bring out empathy and teach history to young people. Personally, reading Anne Frank at the age of 12/13 was one of those life defining events. I learned so much, but also I started writing a diary as a result... (which I kept and now I can be transported back to my teenager years whenever I feel like it, and it's quite a rewarding thing to be a able to do)

www.theguardian.com

At 10, I fled the Nazis to live starving and alone in the woods. For two years, detection meant death

Maxwell Smart lost his family in the Holocaust, but was saved by his mother’s instruction to run. It was seven decades before he told anyone what had happened
www.theguardian.com www.theguardian.com
(Warning, tears may sprout while reading this)
 
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littlebabyjesus said:
For me, the difference between the Holocaust and, say, the Armenian genocide or the genocide that is happening right now in Gaza is intent.

The Armenian genocide and the Gaza genocide share certain characteristics. They are acts of ethnic cleansing. You people, leave now. Or die. We don't care which, and we don't care where you go as long as it's somewhere other than here. Casual, callous disregard for the lives of people you don't really deem fully human.

But the Holocaust was the logical conclusion of an ideology and set of beliefs that certain 'races', including Jews and Romani, are a blight on the planet and need to be exterminated. Not just 'we don't want you, go away' or 'we want your land, go away', but 'we think you are evil, you must die'.

For me, that's where the real horror lies, and I don't necessarily think it lacks any equivalents in history - Rwanda perhaps is a near equivalent: 'you are Tutsi, you must die' - but many other atrocities are definitely still genocide while lacking this particular intent. And then there was the measured, calculated way they went about it. A killing frenzy like that in Rwanda is in some important ways less horrifying than a calm, organised, bureaucratic extermination.

ETA: Just to add to this. I am aware that this is a Eurocentric view. Or more accurately a Eurocentric gut feeling. Someone from East Asia or Africa or South America may have very different gut feelings. And no reason why they shouldn't.
Click to expand...


On intent and the differences between ethnic cleansing and genocide this women who lived through the ex Yugoslavia wars in the 90s takes issue with use of term ethnic cleansing.

Her view in short is that this term was used by Serbian nationalists and then adopted as a mainstream way to describe what happened in those wars. It became a customary accepted way to describe certain actions.

This in her view was a mistake. And helps to diminish what happened.

She argues the intent was there. It had political origins and should be labelled for what it was. That is genocide.

She compares what is happening in Gaza. Which reminds her of what it was like in wars in the 90s.

The mainstream media followed the lead of governments and international organisations, embracing the terminology created by the Milošević propaganda machinery. They reported about the war as if it was too complicated to explain to Western audiences and instead suggested that it was fuelled by “centuries-old hatreds” among people who do not want to live together, and that “ethnic cleansing” was the only solution.

This interpretation of what happened in Bosnia in the 1990s persists until today. It has become ingrained in the language of Western war reporters and their approach to reporting almost any war, as we can see in the coverage of the Gaza war.
Click to expand...

This is view of someone who lived through organised attempt at genocide.
www.google.com

It is not ‘ethnic cleansing’, it is genocide

The term was invented by Serb genocidaires trying to cover up their crimes in the Bosnian war.
www.google.com www.google.com

Personally I also thought there was a difference between ethnic cleansing and Holocaust.

But after reading this from someone with personal experience perhaps re examination of use of term ethnic cleansing is needed .

One of the things about genocide is that the perpetrators know what they they are doing on some level is criminal so seek to hide and obscure it. Use of language being one way.
 
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I don't remember being taught about the holocaust at school. But even then, in the 80s, I can imagine a disengaged classroom making sick jokes. Teenagers can be like that, especially in a group, and it doesn't necessarily mean they haven't taken it in on an individual level.
 
As someone who hated school maybe its not that kids have less empathy but being in the school factory system turns them off?

That is my experience. My view is that a subject like this isn't the best one to be taught by the teaching profession. Given my experience.

The Tik Tok teacher sounds like a tosser.

I was not taught about Holocaust.

Taught myself later by watching The Shoah doc by Claude Lanzmann.

And have read some of its history.

Maybe for kids stuck in the school system its best not to judge them to much.

School is one of those institutions that can bring out the worst in people.
 
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