Nearly half of Britons never heard of Auschwitz

[Shakespeare]

Wow...proof that we're not the only population of idiots out there. This is sad and depressing.

LONDON (AFP) - Nearly half of Britons have never heard of the Nazi concentration camp of Auschwitz in southern Poland, according to a BBC television poll that was conducted just ahead of the 60th anniversary of the camp's liberation.

Forty-five percent of the 4,000 people questioned for the survey by BBC Two said they had never heard of the Auschwitz-Birkenau camp, the television channel said Thursday.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/afp/20041202/wl_uk_afp/britain_poland_auschwitz_041202132030

[Brundle_Fly]

1. funny how its another country

in the coalition of the idiots.

[movonne]

7. Your sure are right on that one...

[ally_sc]

86. i believe the holocaust occured...

but their was a group or cult like people that said it never happened my question is this: If the holocaust did not occur what went on in that blanket of time in Germany and Poland?
i can not remember the the name of the group, the non-believers...
as far as people in the media making documentaries with re to this topic, I would choose pieces that had an actual survivor interviewed












the only bush i trust is my own

[Endangered Specie]

2. Arbeit Macht Frei.

I bet even fewer know about that.

[Stand and Fight]

43. Work Brings Freedom

[ooglymoogly]

56. those who don't learn from history are destined to repeat

it........witness uberalles george the turd

[ally_sc]

88. i am just mildly curious

there is a guy that uses that symbol for his avatar on another board..What does that mean? is it pure nazism or just another hate group wandering around the earth?

[Forkboy]

3. Scary and sad

[rooboy]

4. It wouldn't surprise me if the stat was similar in most countries. n/t

[Logansquare]

5. Have you heard of Majdanek or Sobibor?

Those were the extermination camps liberated by the Soviets on the Eastern front. The U.S. liberated Auschwitz, which is why we (as befits our national narcissism) believe it was the only death camp in existence. The Brits liberated Belsen, and believe me, the British public recognizes that name and the images that came from the liberation.

[TahitiNut]

13. As someone born in 1943 ...

... my recollection of the newsreels, films on TV, magazine stories, and newspaper columns describing the extent and depth of the atrocities is vivid indeed. It wasn't until I was 6 years old that the Nuremberg Trials were over. I was reading at the age of 4 and was very aware of those proceedings. (My family didn't 'shelter' me by hiding such things. They explained them to me.) My maternal grandparents, to whom I was very close, were Norwegian immigrants with immediate family in occupied Norway. Our family's conciousness of events in Europe was acute indeed - with seven young men (including my father) in the war.

[Journeyman]

14. Where do you get the idea that anyone who knows of the death factories. .

believes Auschwitz was the only one in existence?

[Logansquare]

16. Ask a similar American audience if they know Belsen

Trust me, more than half will have no idea. And the Eastern front camps--I'd doubt that even 10 percent would be able to identify them. I'm annoyed by the assumptions made by people posting on here that the Brits are somehow ignorant about the Holocaust because they can't identify a death camp that is well-known primarily only to Americans.

[barb162]

55. is this the one also known as Bergen-Belsen

[muriel_volestrangler]

57. Yes (n/t)

[Mokito]

66. Or Breendonk.

[muriel_volestrangler]

15. Belsen will be relatively better known in Britain than America

but I wouldn't count on many more people knowing it than Auschwitz. Those alive at the time will certainly know it (and most of those will know Auschwitz as well, I expect), but that's probably less than a fifth of adults. For the rest of us, it's history, rather than news reports that we heard at the time, and I'd say Auschwitz comes up at least as often, and probably more, as Belsen as an example of a death camp.

Knowing the name of the camps is not the most important thing - knowing what happened in them is. I'd like to know if they asked other questions, like 'what was the Holocaust', or 'what groups died in the camps'.

[Mr Creosote]

35. I'm sceptical about this poll

as I am about all polls: but one thing I am sure of, a lot more than 55% of people will have heard of Belsen (when I was a boy "Belsen" was used as a shorthand for the holocaust - for instance famine victims "look like they've come from Belsen"). And even more than that will be aware of the Holocaust and what happened.
And we don't have much time for Holocaust-deniers either, as comprehensive as Galloway's legal victory was yesterday, I think the single biggest rout in a libel case was that of David Irving (Irvine?).

[Demeter]

42. Don't Be

I read Freepers extolling John Adams as a Christian. Ignorance in this country exceeds all possible error and fraud. It's the stupidity that bothers me, though. The misguided would rather be wrong than have to update their databases.

[muriel_volestrangler]

17. The Soviets liberated Auschwitz too

(not surprising, it being in Poland). The USA liberated ones in Germany, like Dachau or Buchenwald.

[SweetLeftFoot]

46. You make a very good point

Belsen is the big one in the British memory.

That said, there are other concentration camps the British don't know too much about - Long Kesh et al.

[nodehopper]

72. I don't think the US public only recognizes Auschwitz

True, the smaller camps are lesser known but people know about Dahau and Buchenwald. Having said that, a large part of genocide occurred at Auschwitz and Dahau and it really boggles my mind that people may not have heard of those.

[conservdem]

74. I doubt most people in the US that know what Auschwitz is believe

it was the only death camp in existance. Perhaps "we" are not as bad as you think.

[Khephra]

6. REMEMBER: There's a whole generation raised under Thatcher

who were screwed over in terms of education just like my generation was screwed with social and educational cutbacks under Reagan. For some it's their own fault, but for others it's the fault of Conservative spending cuts.

[achtung_circus]

9. There's also the

"the Wogs start at Calais" mindset.

[ashiebr]

10. Does it really matter if they don't know the names...........

............if they know of the events?

[Demonaut]

28. Wog is a very derogatory term, equates to "nigger" in the US

[achtung_circus]

31. Absolutely,

Lots of theories about where it comes from, no concensus. The phrase demonstrated (demonstrates?) the insular nature of a large part of British (especially English) society.

A friend of my father used to sing
Rule Brittainia,
Brittainia rules the waves,
Let all other nations,
Be our slaves.

[ArthurDent]

30. Did you study WWII in school?

I don't think we ever did. Wasn't a function of funding -- I grew up in a rather well off school district in a rather well of state. It just seemed that we spent years on the Revolutionary period, made it up to the early 1900s, and suddenly, graduated.

[OneBlueSky]

8. betcha it's about 70% in this country . . . n/t

.

[Lizzie Borden]

21. I have no doubt..

Between lousy schooling, our failuure to ask much from our students, and historical revisionists it will soon be a wonder if it's remembered at all.

[PartyPooper]

23. "Those who don't know the history are doomed to repeat it".

And, in 100 years (If we're still here inhabiting the planet) even fewer will know what happened. Sad, indeed!

[Matilda]

11. I was shocked to read this. Then I asked my 18 y.o. son

if he'd heard of Auschwitz, and he said "what?"

So I'm afraid young Australians are also pretty ignorant. I shall
have to educate him.

[Menshevik]

12. Yikes

While one of my friends was on a bus in London, a girl asked him where he was from...he replied that he was from Morocco, and she said "Really? Near New Mexico?"

:wtf:

So yeah, there are idiots everywhere.

[barb162]

63. Hey, Mexico, Morocco what's the diff? Both begin with M and have

3 syllables, LOL. I bet many Americans couldn't point to the Mississippi River on a map

[VLC98]

18. I find that hard to believe.

I know for a fact that everyone in my uneducated British family has heard of Auschwitz, although I doubt they could spell it.

[YellowRubberDuckie]

19. There are people who believe it didn't happen.

Talk about idiots...
Duckie

[Ilsa]

20. A very good friend of mine said his father was one of the soldiers

who helped liberate a concentration camp. I believe he said it was Auschwitz. He saw the starving prisoners, he witnessed that cruelty.

He is dead now. The witnesses to WWII are dying off, probably around a 1,000 a day, if that many are left.

[DemoTex]

25. My dad, WIA and POW (escaped) in Italy, was one of the first in at Dachau.

Outside of Munich. He was an arty officer. He is still a great guy at 84+. He was one of the first to walk in on the "prison" at Dachau.

[barb162]

70. what is WIA

[barb162]

64. my father was a soldier who liberated one of the camps too.

[Swamp Rat]

22. When I have mentioned, in the past, my trip to Dachau to Americans, NONE

of them knew a goddamn thing I was talking about! I knew what Auschwitz was when I was a child, but mention it now, and hardly anybody knows what it represents... not talking about the DU community of course.

If we forget the past, we are doomed to repeat the same mistakes... oh wait. We already are. :mad:

[DemoTex]

26. I grew up as a WASP knowing the horrors of Dachau.

My dad was in the first day wave "liberating" what was left of Dachau. What they found, hanged men later. George W. Bush, verb sap! Verb Sap you asshole!

[Swamp Rat]

29. I remember quite vividly the "shower" spigots where people were gassed

I guess I stood there for twenty minutes or so, but it seemed like a lifetime, living ONE moment of horror - I could see where death was released from the tiny holes. As I walked around the perimeter of the concentration camp, I could see that German citizens MUST have seen the gallows from the street when they walked to work and school every morning. :grr:

I saw a film of air pressure experiments done to former captives, which of course resulted in death, and got into a fight with a redneck from Florida who was there, when he laughed and made unspeakable comments during the movie (I was studying at the Universität in Innsbruck, Austria at the time). I thought I was going to get in trouble, but instead he got expelled from school, but not before he was taken away by Israeli security. :mad:

[SweetLeftFoot]

50. Actually

And let us be clear I'm not denying that any of these events took place - but all the gas chambers at places like Auschwitz are reconstructions. The Germans dismantled the originals as they retreated. Which doesn't mean that one can't try to imagine the horrors that took place in the chambers. But they are not the original structures.

[Swamp Rat]

84. WRONG! You should do your own research before opening your mouth.

All you do is let flies in. You just verified the point of this thread.

http://www.history.ucsb.edu/faculty/marcuse/present/993AAGtourism011.htm
http://www.scrapbookpages.com/DachauScrapbook/GasChamber/gaschamber.html







edit: I need of catharsis, I added in the sarcastic line.

[SweetLeftFoot]

89. One link didn't work

I may be wrong on dachau (perhaps) but certainly not Auschwitz/Birkenau.

BTW - I like your Ann Coulter pic.

[Swamp Rat]

91. Thank you

Sorry for the harshness. I was tired and got emotional.

The link that is not working had a lot of photos of Dachau - server must be down.

peace

[KitSileya]

58. My dad took all of us to Dachau when we were adolescents.

We used to spend some of our vacations driving around in Germany (my father teaches German) and one time, we went to Dachau. I don't know why he did this, perhaps because he is a so-called 'German brat', that is, the child of a German soldier and a Norwegian woman, born during WWII. These kids were teased, taunted, and abused, often taken from their mothers and mistreated in orphanages. My dad was lucky, he was raised by his grandmother, and by his mother after she was released from prison, to which she was sentenced for consorting with the enemy (Norway was probably the country in Europe where they reacted most savagely against anyone who had worked or otherwise consorted with the Germans.) I do remember Dachau vividly - I don't think I'll ever forget the mounds of glasses, or childrens shoes stacked in different rooms, a tanglible reminder of the sheer numbers of people who were slaughtered.

In Norway, there's a determination to keep the memory of the Holocaust alive, and to combat neo-nazism. I've taught at 2 schools this year where they take the students on what's called a "White Bus" trip to Auschwitz as part of social studies/history class. The White Busses were busses sent to concentration camps by the Swedish Red Cross at the instigation of the Norwegian diplomat Nils Christian Ditleff, and with the help of Swedish Count Folke Bernadotte, to save 27 000 Norwegian and Danish prisoners in april 1945. The organization 'White Busses to Auschwitz' is named in honor of them, and the kids are accompanied by survivors from these camps. They try to teach the belief that a single person's action can be decisive - Ditleff got the idea, and Bernadotte, as the head of the SRC, negotiated with Himmler personally. The memories are being kept alive - and told to the next generation, and I think that is the most encouraging thing of all.

[glitch]

87. That is very encouraging. Thank you for reporting! nt

[American liberal]

24. I don't believe it. Polls lie.

And I doubt they can extrapolate that small of a sample to the entire population. Does the article disclose how they picked the sample and what the average age was? England has a much longer history than ours. WW II hit much closer to home for them than us--literally. I'd guess that Europeans in general are better educated and have more of a global perspective than we do. I just don't buy it.

[Demonaut]

27. I agree completely, growing up in England in the seventies

we were very aware of the effects of the war, like the russians who called it the Patriotic War we were reminded daily of the struggle, not quite to the extent of the russians but still enough to know more about the war than most americans, and the landscape was dotted by US and British bases. The BBC used to have documentaries about the war that covered the blitz and the atrocities that occurred at the death camps

[rman]

32. i'm guessing much more then half has heard of "the holocaust"

-

[Nihil]

33. I'm guessing much more than half think it only involved Jews

I'd heard about the Holocaust early in school (yes, including Auschwitz,
Belsen, Buchenwald, Dachau, et al) but it was only later that people
explained that no, it wasn't in fact 100% Jewish victims.

The reason why many Holocaust-deniers are even listened to is that they
can show how the "Holocaust=Jewish" story is a lie. Once they get a
foothold like that, they can start with their own lies.

The "Final Solution" was a crime against humanity, not just one part of
it, and we forget that at our peril. Pretending that there is nothing
wrong with a proto-fascist regime as long as Jews aren't being targeted
(at the moment) is thin ice indeed ...

Nihil

[nodehopper]

73. first they came for the communists...

you are absolutely right. And it's a shame that there is ignorance about other groups against whom genocide was committed by the Nazis--the gypsies, the homosexuals, everyone who got a "special" armband patch to wear.

[VLC98]

34. Maybe I'm an idiot for asking this...

but how did they know who was Jewish? (They being the Nazi's).

[muriel_volestrangler]

37. Endless official records

and officials deciding what made someone half-Jewish, three eighths, etc., and exactly what that meant their fate was. Plus, I imagine, a bit of denunciation by neighbours with grudges.

[VLC98]

38. Were the records compiled

prior to the Nazi's being in power? If not, didn't they suspect they were being separated for negative treatment or would it be against their religion to deny being Jewish?

[Kellanved]

40. in part

The Nazis demanded that people prove not being Jewish. As the birth and death certificates were issued by and kept in Churches and Synagogues (and carried their mark), it was pretty effective. Also, many were more than willing to inform the Nazis about their neighbor's background. Genealogy became very popular in that time.

[VLC98]

47. Thanks. It didn't occur to me...

that birth certificates would have any connection to a person's religion. Those poor people.

[nodehopper]

75. it wasn't an issue of religion but of ethnicity

in many places Jewish is regarded as ethnicity, the idea of Jewish as just a "religion" shocked me when I first came to America. In Russia, where I grew up, being Jewish was being Jewish by blood; not something you can convert to or out of. A race with its own distinct phenotype. So, my dad looks "typically" Jewish, the way his nose looks, the way he pronounces his "R"s (in Russian at least). In USSR there was a category in your passport for "ethnicity" and if you were Jewish you put Jewish there. There was no religion to speak of.

[VLC98]

80. Yes, I see your point.

My husband was baptized Roman Catholic, but certainly isn't one now, whereas I understand a Jew will always be one. Is it because Jewish people have been more likely to marry within that ethnic group, thus keeping the genes, therefor features etc, pure?

[rhyfeddu]

65. Plus, wasn't the Jewish population pretty distinct anyway...

...because they tended to cluster in population - whether due to cultural choice or necessity because of discrimination - even before the mass round-ups into ghettos? If you lived on "X" street, you'd be suspect anyway, right?

EDIT: spelling

[nodehopper]

76. also Ashkenazi Jews have a typical "look" (not all, obviously, but many)

And for Nazis, obsessed with Eugenics and frenology appearance and weird physical measurements were tools of recognition and categorization.

[rhyfeddu]

77. Ah, yes. I remember now seeing some program about...

...how they were mapping out measurements of the head to show what "proper" Aryan features were, as opposed to everyone else...

Creepy. :scared:

[TheWraith]

83. As an addendum...

...I highly recommend the movie Conspiracy, with Kenneth Branagh and Stanley Tucci. It's derived from the single surviving copy of the notes from a meeting in Wannsee where top Nazi officials discussed the 'final solution'. It's brilliantly terrifying in the way it shows how little of a leap there is from bigotry and 'if your not with us you're against us' to genocide when they don't have to get their hands dirty.

[rman]

51. IBM punch cards,

for one.

The Nazis had a huge logistical problem in selecting, transporting and keeping track of all those 'enemies of the state'.
IBM was happy to provide (mechanical) computers and computer punchcards made specifically for that purpose.

see "The Corporation"
www.thecorporation.com

[D-Notice]

53. I'd recommend the book

"IBM & the Holocaust" by Edwin Black. Very depressing - shows what can happen when profits are all that matter.

It makes a joke about them being "The Solutions Company"...

[JI7]

36. what percent know their country used chemical weapons in Iraq?

i wonder what percentage know the British used chemical weapons in Iraq.

[VLC98]

39. Did they? Or do you mean..

by being part of the coalition?

[Englander]

41. In the '20s...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,939608,00.html

[VLC98]

48. No, I had no idea.....

but my history lessons in England were a joke. I think we "studied" the bubonic plague about 5 times and the Industrial Revolution, that's all I can remember. Still, I'm a housewife....you'd expect the most powerful man in the World to know about such things and act accordingly. Bastards.

[Make7]

44. Nearly half of Americans never heard of Britons. n/t

[Gyre]

45. Clear evidence that Israel knows it's future depends on US

They've spent their resources "educating" the American public well but couldn't care less about what Britain thinks or knows about the Jews or Israel. Don't see that any people's ignorance about the Holocaut is surprising or news.

Gyre

[Logiola]

49. http://www.holocaustchronicle.org/

If you guys have the thirst of knowledge of this topic, you should browse http://www.holocaustchronicle.org/ i purchased the book which is over 800 pages.. it has a history time line which is very interesting to read.


the book is very cheap for it's size and quality since it is not for profit and that is also the reason why the entire book is online.

[rman]

52. The Holocaust Industry Reflections on the Exploitation of Jewish Suffering

"The Holocaust Industry: Reflections on the Exploitation of Jewish Suffering"
by Norman Finkelstein

http://www.normanfinkelstein.com/

http://www.serendipity.li/more/finkel.html

Jewish American historian Norman Finkelstein argues in his explosive new book, "The Holocaust Industry: Reflections on the Exploitation of Jewish Suffering" that Holocaust remembrance has been exploited by the Jewish establishment.

<snip>

The son of survivors of the Warsaw ghetto and concentration camps, he says, "I do care about the memory of my family's persecution. The current campaign of the Holocaust industry to extort money from Europe in the name of "needy Holocaust victims" has shrunk the moral stature of their martyrdom to that of a Monte Carlo casino."

<more>

[LoneDriver]

54. Why should the British worry about death camps?

After all they invented them.

http://www.boer.co.za/boerwar/hellkamp.htm

(warning the usual pictures of dead and suffering children)

Most people want to forget unpleasent things they may have done.

[barb162]

59. history and geography are not strong points for most people in

this country either. I have seen too many "man in the street" interviews where people are asked what is the name of the third planet from the sun and people can't answer. Or name a continent beginning with "A" and people respond "Arizona"

I have also seen people being asked when was World War 2 or the Civil War and people couldn't even get the century correct. So the fact they wouldn't know about the camps doesn't surprise me one little bit.

[Hosnon]

81. That is absolutely amazing. When I see "man on the street" type things

I always have assumed they were just jokes - are they actually real interviews?

[barb162]

85. They are real. I at first thought the same thing you did (how

can these people even have a job, etc., it has to be a joke)but then start doing this yourself. Start asking the average college grad some basic questions on geography or history or what you think is common knowledge. You will find out very quickly these interviews are real and the people just don't know. This lack of basic knowledge about such simple things as the past, geographical surroundings and also the lack of curiosity to find out on our own explains a lot of things. When people don't know Lincoln was the prez during the Civil War or they don't know the diff between N. Mexico and Mexico, it explains why they are gullible to the sleaziest of political issues, why they can't balance a checkbook and go bankrupt, etc. They have no intellectual curiosity to pick up a book or even go on the net and learn something on their own. When people say how can a person vote for Bush, well, for one thing, he offered the simplest of issues and Kerry was offering something more complex, often with answers in paragraphs versus one liners. They sometimes do these questions in my city and they run about the same as they do on the national shows. How did Mencken say it: never underestimate the stupidity of the average American and you won't be disappointed. Really, try some of these questions yourself on people...you'll see.

[Briar]

60. What makes this even more amazing

is that you can't get away from WW2 in our self aggrandising national myth. Without endless "documentaries" about Hitler, the Reich and the war, Channel 5 and the History Channel would have to shut down (as The National Geographic Channel would have to shut down without its endless programmes about ghoulish murders, forensic science and police procedures). And throughout the summer it was impossible to miss nationalistic ceremonies celebrating D Day and so on going out on the news channels and elsewhere...

So the absence of a context including the holocaust is as much the fault of the media and entertainment industries as of the schools (which in fact try to provide that context by organising trips to Auschwitz, for example). Concentrating on the heroics of "our guys" and ignoring the suffering of foreigners didn't start with Afghanistan and Iraq.

[barb162]

62. The History Channel is highly disappointing; I wish they would

have a more scholarly approach...but then again probably no one would watch it. Actually I wish they would cover wars from several different aspects and viewpoints and from social, military, political, etc., contexts.

I have studied that war and my father was in WW2 so I think I might have a different take on it than you. To me, you cannot thank these people enough who grew up during the Depression and then went off to fight 4 or 5 years. The 1930s and early 1940s were extremely sad, horrible and disastrous years on so many levels for the US, Europe and other countries. SO many millions dying and suffering.

[NurseLefty]

68. My dad watches the History Channel and has seen many goofs.

He's a WWII vet (British Navy) - he's developed a hobby of sorts, watching HC programs - he counts the errors. I remember him telling me about a program on WWII - it showed street scenes of London. Problem was, the footage was from WWI!

(edit for spelling)

[barb162]

71. I believe it! Does your dad talk about the war ever? My father died

very young in his 40s and he never ever talked about it to us kids. He was shot twice and was in North Africa for a while and then he was under Patton in Europe and he hated Patton so much. He would sit there often looking at his book which was on the whatever army that Patton led. It had all these pictures of every man and woman in Patton's command. I mean he would look at it for hours and we were never supposed to bother him when he was looking at this. Sometimes he would be on Patton's picture for hours, just staring at it. I was pretty young at that point but you could tell he was in his own world and probably reliving all this killing and horrible stuff. My mother would sometimes tell us things and she said that when the soldiers liberated the camps a lot of the soldiers were vomiting with what they saw. Since these soldiers had already seen a hell of a lot of war by that point, well you can just imagine what they saw. The stench was unbelievable according to what my father told my mom. I think Patton really pushed the soldiers and didn't give a shit whether they were clothed for winter, how tired they were, etc.

[Stella_Artois]

61. Before we get ahead of ourselves

Hmmm...half the country *does* know about it.

Its not an event in most peoples living memory. Thats not too bad a statistic compared with these findings

http://archives.cnn.com/2002/EDUCAT...geography.quiz/

87% of Americans could not find Iraq on a map, at the time when America was about to invade it.

[Chicago Democrat]

69. My first thought as well....

Suprisingly smart those Brits... Now Americans are morons.

[Hosnon]

82. Yes, it is sad for me to admit that I seem to learn more geography

as the U.S. invades areas.

[JanMichael]

67. Doesn't surprise me one iota.

The World ignorance level is rising at alarming rates.

Sure I bash our home grown lack of knowledge and awareness but it doesn't mean that other nations have similar deficiencies.

[Karenina]

90. Video games.

[212demop]

78. And their own were POW's there! Unbelievable.

[Hosnon]

79. Distinction:

Is it that they didn't know of that particular camp by name or that they didn't know of the concentration camps. Hopefully it is the former.