Study: 22% of Millennials are unaware or unsure of what the Holocaust is

[dutch508]

Star Member blondebanshee (248 posts)
https://www.democraticunderground.com/100212043642

Study: 22% of Millennials are unaware or unsure of what the Holocaust is
The study was conducted by the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany. Eleven percent of U.S. adults haven't heard or are unsure of what the Holocaust was.

Sixty-six percent of Millennials and 41 percent of adults don't know what Auschwitz is.

Star Member sinkingfeeling (38,848 posts)

3. Shocking. What has become of our educational system?

What indeed...

Star Member CrispyQ (25,976 posts)

52. Standardized testing.

The GOP has focused on filling positions in Boards of Education since the 1980s. They had a long term strategy & it's paying off.

And sports. This country is sports crazed. It's obscene how much many universities pay their sports coaches. And even at a high school level sports is often emphasized/supported more than academics.

 

Star Member ecstatic (24,368 posts)

14. I'm sure this is by design, but I find it disgusting that those in control of the curriculum/textbooks/etc have systematically whitewashed history with regard to slavery, the Holocaust, Native Americans, etc. Again, I think it's by design, but I don't think it's going to work out the way they intended. When citizens become overwhelmingly ignorant of history, the entire country is at risk of failing, and yes, that affects the 1% as well.

 

Volaris (6,331 posts)

41. How the **** is this POSSIBLE???

Oh wait, Betsy Devos...nuff said, I guess

Still...

Star Member Mariana (8,768 posts)

43. DeVos had nothing to do with educating Millennials.

They were out of high school before she was appointed to her position.

 

Volaris (6,331 posts)

44. Technically that's true...but her and her ilk have been with us in one form or another Since the founding of the public education system.

One of the questions I'd like her asked in Public:

Would your various companies have made nearly as much money if the workforce you employ, consisted ONLY of rich kids whos parents could AFFORD to teach them to read?

'crickets.'

That's what the **** I thought.

 

Joe941 (1,381 posts)

45. Where there is ignorance repukes thrive.

 

[SVPete]

I'd look toward public schools, teachers unions, and states' Superintendents of Public Instruction, and states' textbook committees. Or for quickie clues, Ilhan Omar, Rashida Tlaib, and the leadership of the national Women's March group.

Personally, my public schools' US History classes tend to bog down in earlier eras, and WW2 got little or no mention (ditto WW1, which was skipped for the Great Depression). What I learned was due to my parents' promptings - e.g. library books chosen for me to read - and my own reading. From the 1970s onward, telling about US victory in wars probably became unfashionable in educational circles, and it's gotten worse as peacenik hippies became teachers.

ETA: Added clarification.

[ChuckJ]

Joe941 (1,381 posts)

45. Where there is ignorance repukes thrive.

So the DUmmie is saying the republicans thrive on DemocratUndergroud. I guess it is talking about all of the moles.

[DumbAss Tanker]

To be honest it isn't really important to US history in particular, not that they have any grasp of that either.  It had nothing to do with why we got in WW2 or how we fought it, it was only in the very end that anyone outside the inner political/diplomatic circle became fully aware of it.  It's naturally huge to the generations that were contemporary with it of course, and naturally to the children they raised, but aside from leading to the establishment of Israel it actually had as much effect on us as the Armenian genocide a generation before, and that's something most of the Holocaust generation itself completely blew off.

[SVPete]

To be honest it isn't really important to US history in particular, not that they have any grasp of that either.  It had nothing to do with why we got in WW2 or how we fought it, it was only in the very end that anyone outside the inner political/diplomatic circle became fully aware of it.  It's naturally huge to the generations that were contemporary with it of course, and naturally to the children they raised, but aside from leading to the establishment of Israel it actually had as much effect on us as the Armenian genocide a generation before, and that's something most of the Holocaust generation itself completely blew off.

Strictly speaking that is correct. Probably the only concentration camp that the US might have been aware of before WW2 was Dachau, which was used for political prisoners. Bergen-Belsen and Treblinka opened after the US was in the war, and Auschwitz began just two months before the PH attack. As such, the extermination camps had no effect on the US entry into the war, and until very late, how the US went about its role in the war. Very late in the war, the US became aware of the camps and there was discussion of bombing the camps. Other than a symbol - IMO - I'm not sure what would have been accomplished. US and Brit bombing capabilities were too imprecise to shut down the camps, and far more inmates would have been killed than Nazi guards and administrative people.

The big lessons of the Holocaust are how evil antisemitism is and the extremes to which it will go, and that human beings are quite capable of truly awful things.

[Ralph Wiggum]

Republicans and conservatives have been controlling academia...who knew?

[SVPete]

Republicans and conservatives have been controlling academia...who knew?

earned and issued!

[FiddyBeowulf]

The ignorance is on purpose. It might raise questions on which democrat president ignored it happening in Europe while also interning Japanese people at home.

[Mr Mannn]

It is easier to control the ignorant than people who understand and cherish freedom.

[YupItsMe]

Republicans and conservatives have been controlling academia...who knew?

  Yeah I got that drift, but I was distracted by a flying unicorn.

[SVPete]

  Yeah I got that drift, but I was distracted by a flying unicorn.

Lots of rainbow-poop to dodge.

[Old n Grumpy]

Star Member sinkingfeeling (38,848 posts)

3. Shocking. What has become of our educational system?

Unions and liberal progressives pushing Their agenda, as well as diversity, going to the lowest common denominator.

[J P Sousa]

I think that 33% of millennials don't know what a job is, especially those in blue states.