I just read that today is International Holocaust Remembrance Day (a friend that works at the Holocaust Museum in Chicago posted on Facebook). It's been 70 years since the liberation. It made me think of how I learned about the holocaust, and curious about the experiences of others.
So, how did you learn about the Holocaust? Did you grow up practicing religion? If you learned at school, what type of school did you attend?
I learned about it in school first but it sparked an interest in the topic and I was forever reading books about it afterwards. My mother had a fat ass Time Life coffee table type book about WWII and the part about the Holocaust always struck me the hardest.
There's something striking me to be about the notion of always dealing with a sense of otherness I suppose, knowing you were different but being fairly accepted on some level (depending on the country and region) and then in short order, being actively hunted and discriminated against.
I grew up Methodist, and went to a public magnet school in Atlanta. I don't remember the first time I recall learning about the Holocaust, but I distinctly remember having a unit in 6th grade language arts where we read a lot of books about it. We also had a holocaust survivor come speak to our class. I remember our teacher telling us about visiting the museum in DC and sobbing when she got to the area with all the shoes.
We learned in school, but my strongest memory and the one that got me very interested in history and reading more about WWII and the Holocaust was reading Number the Stars. I think I was in 2nd grade? Maybe 3rd.
Post by iammalcolmx on Jan 27, 2015 20:02:56 GMT -5
An episode of Magnum PI touched on it. I asked my Grandma what that meant. We sat in the kitchen and she told me all about Hitler, Pearl Harbor, and then the Atomic Bomb. When she told me about the second bomb I can now tell she didn't agree with it.
I can't remember the first time I heard about the Holocaust. I think it was probably in the 2nd or 3rd grade. I read Number the Stars and became obsessed with it.
I'm far less interested in that time period and the Holocaust these days. This sounds sooooooo melodramatic, but I kind of feel like being a practicing Jew kind of makes every day Holocaust Remembrance Day.
Post by hopecounts on Jan 27, 2015 20:11:49 GMT -5
Grew up Southern Baptist. Learned about the Holocaust via Number the Stars late 2nd grade which started me off. Ended up taking a History of the Holocaust class in College that was fascinating and disturbing.
Post by thejackpot on Jan 27, 2015 20:12:20 GMT -5
I learned about it in school. I attended a public school in Miami and we have a large Jewish population so I learned a great deal about the culture through friendships and school. I have been to more early bird dinners in Boca than most
Random right? There were people lying about being survivor's but they didn't have the tattoos. I asked my Grandma about it. I remember the atomic bomb scaring me and not understanding that Hitler wanted to kill me as well.
Post by mrsdewinter on Jan 27, 2015 21:10:41 GMT -5
I'm pretty sure I learned about it first at the JCC and through books like Number the Stars and the Devil's Arithmetic. I recently learned that my great grandmother left Europe for America when she was just 16 years old. Some of her other family left too and some stayed. Her family who stayed were almost all killed by the Nazis. If she hadn't made that choice to leave, I wouldn't be here.
I can't even remember where we were, I was relatively young and with my mom and aunt and we got on an elevator and the elevator operator had numbers tattooed on his arm. My mom and aunt explained it to me after we got off the elevator.
I also really remember reading Number the Stars in (public) elementary school. We followed up the book with a visit to the Dallas Holocaust Museum.
When I was in 6th grade, Elie Weisel came and spoke at my (private, Episcopal) school to all the middle and upper school students. We had read "Night" that year or the year before. Needless to say, he was a wonderful, powerful speaker.
Also, in 8th grade we had our class trip to DC and spent nearly all day in the National Holocaust Museum. I most remember sitting in the train car.
I don't remember how old I was or what I first learned, but I feel like I've known about it all my life. I'm Jewish and grew up going to Jewish schools, synagogue, etc, so it's always been a part of my life and education. I went to a public high school, but we had a "literature of the Holocaust" class that I took and a weeklong Holocaust rememberance educational programs and events.
I have no idea. I'm sure the first I heard of it was "The Diary of Anne Frank" but I don't even remember how old I was when I read that. Honestly, I didn't even know a Jewish person first hand until after I met my H. One of his best friends is Jewish and he was the first person I met who was.
"Not gonna lie; I kind of keep expecting you to post one day that you threw down on someone who clearly had no idea that today was NOT THEIR DAY." ~dontcallmeshirley
Post by jillboston on Jan 27, 2015 22:38:50 GMT -5
We watched pretty graphic documentaries about the concentration camps in the 6th grade (this would have been 1979). It is one of the only things I remember about our history classes. My BIL (20 years older than my sister) was a Hungarian Jew raised in Austria and both he and his parents escaped to Egypt during the war(they divorced before they left - he took a ship by himself). The rest of the family other than an aunt who emigrated to England and her daughter and one other aunt who was at Auschwitz and survived perished.
The Holocaust has shaped my entire life. I can't say when I first learned about because it was probably at the same time I learned to speak or walk. My grandparents were survivors.
Post by alleinesein on Jan 28, 2015 0:34:57 GMT -5
I learned about from my family when I was very young. My uncle was 3rd wave on D-Day and helped liberate Dachau and then spent the rest of his military service in Germany. My grandfather's best friend was a scout and spent time as a POW in a concentration camp. I got first hand accounts of the horrors of the Holocaust from people who saw it.
Did not grow up religious. Went to public school. We had to read the Diary of Anne Frank in middle school, we watched Memory of the Camps in US History and Schindlers List came out my senior year and my Civics teacher (and the school) required all of us to go see it and write about it.
I don't remember where I first heard about it. Probably in school. I remember visiting our local holocaust museum and reading popular lit books on the subject. A branch of my extended family is Jewish and the vast majority of that side died in the camps (we presume) but no one in my immediate family talks about it much.
Post by sugarglider on Jan 28, 2015 7:43:53 GMT -5
I don't remember ever not knowing. (Presbyterian, went to public schools in the Midwest).
I grew up watching a lot of musical theater, and both The Sound of Music and Cabaret are set with the backdrop of WWII.
I probably learned the most about the holocaust in German class, though, in high school. My German teacher was big on teaching German culture and history in addition to the language. I went to Germany when I was 15, and we visited Dachau.
I saw a revival production of Cabaret my freshman year of college. NPH played the emcee, and was costumed in a concentration camp prisoner uniform for the final song, and it was so poignant. I knew but don't think I fully appreciated that other groups were targeted in addition to Jews, so that staging really made it hit home for me.
There aren't a ton of Jewish people in my hometown, but there is Holocaust museum, which was founded by a survivor activist who gives speeches about her experience. A guy from my year is the director of the museum and is occasionally quoted in national media.
I first learned about the Holocaust when I was in 2nd or 3rd grade, but I really didn't understand it in any meaningful way, just that some girl named Anne hid from the Nazi's and wrote a diary. Then in 6th grade we did a whole segment on it, we watched Schindler's List, read Night, and the Diary of Anne Frank. Again, I have to admit that while I had a basic understanding of what happened, I really didn't understand the emotional impact of it all. It wasn't until I visited the Holocaust Museum in high school that it had real punch. That it wasn't just a piece of history that happened forever ago, that it was real to me, and had a grip on my soul.
My husband is Jewish, and some members of his family were successfully hidden from the Nazis (some were not so lucky). There's a really horrifying yet wonderful family story from that time, they were hiding at a farm, and the Nazi soldiers came and questioned the family that was hiding them. There were four brothers at the farm ranging from 18 or 20 down to about 10 years old, the Nazis asked if they were hiding any Jews. They all said no, but they didn't believe them, so they dragged the eldest of the brothers into a separate room, questioned him, and when he still denied it, shot him. Then they went back down the line and asked all the brothers again if they were hiding anyone. I've heard different accounts as to whether they dragged the second eldest brother into the room and shot him as well, but it's not really clear. Either way, no one ever gave my husband's family up. The soldiers eventually left, and it turned out that the soldiers hadn't actually shot the brother(s) they dragged in the back room, just fired the gun to make it sound as if they had. Eventually my husband's family made it out of Poland/Russia (they were in a village on the border). Just recently we managed to track down the relatives of the family the hid them, and some members of our family had a chance to travel and visit with the family that hid them. It was such a wonderful and yet heartbreaking reunion.
Sadly my husbands grandmother suffered from Dementia and Alzheimer's and her last years were her stuck inside the memories of fleeing from the Nazi's. She lived her last years in absolute terror. There are hardly any family records from that time, birth certificates, marriage records, names of villages, they are all but completely wiped out. It really is hard to fathom, and even more horrifying to think about the genocides that are still going on in this world.
I learned about it in school. I attended a public school in Miami and we have a large Jewish population so I learned a great deal about the culture through friendships and school. I have been to more early bird dinners in Boca than most
I might have you beat in that. I attended non religious private school in Broward
For real, though, we'd regularly have survivors viator and talk with us, and we watched movies probably more intense than our ages warranted. There were days of suspended instruction just to make time for these events.
I learned about it in school, public school in MD. We took a field trip to the Holocaust Museum in DC when I was in high school. I haven't been back since, but I still remember parts of it very clearly.
I learned about it in school. I attended a public school in Miami and we have a large Jewish population so I learned a great deal about the culture through friendships and school. I have been to more early bird dinners in Boca than most
I might have you beat in that. I attended non religious private school in Broward
For real, though, we'd regularly have survivors viator and talk with us, and we watched movies probably more intense than our ages warranted. There were days of suspended instruction just to make time for these events.
I learned so much and was exposed to so much that when I moved I was so shocked that it was not the norm. I didn't know that the world was not going to Bat Mitvahs or Bris ceremonies.
Post by ChillyMcFreeze on Jan 28, 2015 9:08:45 GMT -5
I grew up hearing about the Holocaust because my great grandparents escaped Poland at that time. I was Holocaust-obsessed around 4th grade when we read Number the Stars. I read it probably 6 times in a row. Then when I was 12 and we lived in Central Europe, I begged my dad to take me on a concentration camp tour. I've been to Auschwitz twice and a couple other camps. I vividly remember at Auschwitz seeing a suitcase with a boy's name and birthdate on it. It was the exact day my dad was born, and he cried openly.
Post by aurademystere on Jan 28, 2015 9:14:17 GMT -5
I don't remember a time not knowing. My mother and grandmother spend most of the war hiding from the Ustase an Ursuline convent. Several other distant relatives were killed at Jasenovac.