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In England, the holocaust takes an important place, although events that directly affect Britain may take more importance, such as the Blitz (the bombing of England in 1940) and the battle of England, D-day (the invasion of the Normandy in 1944). Britain of course looks back at the war as a victorious and heroic war. The hero of the war there is undoubtedly Sir Winston Churchill who is seen as the one who rallied the British people around him (his famous quote "I can give you nothing but blood, sweat, toil, and tears), who made a propaganda success out of Dunkirque ("In thousand years it will be remembered as the finest hour"), and whose resilience ("we will fight them at the beaches, ..") ultimately resulted in Britain winning the war. Back to the holocaust: On the background, they explain: Hitler believed in social Darwinism, which is a belief in the survival of the fittest, where the weak are left to die. He applied this to race and national politics.
Also the question is raised: Why did Hitler hate the Jews: there are a number of possibilities given for Hitler hating Jews: a Jewish professor at art college rejected Hitler and this sparked hatred in him because he was a keen artist. Another possibility is that the Jews were important within the communist party of the Soviet Union which was a political reason to turn the Jews into scapegoats. Also many Germans blamed the Jews for stabbing Germany in the back after the First World War. The curriculum also looks at the: Political gains from anti-Semitism The Jews were accused of exploiting ordinary German workers and for being Communists. Both the communists and war profiteers were disliked by the German populace, blaming the Jews and promising to rid Germany of the problem could gain political support from the oppressed masses. Anti-Semitism was a populist measure - appealing to a broad range of the population.
The curriculum then explains the: Anti Semitic policies from 1933-1945: once Hitler came into power, he immediately started discriminating against the Jews. The SS were in charge of a selective breeding policy which involved selecting racially pure women for SS officers to father the children of. Important positions could only be filled by people who were racially pure. School curriculum was rewritten to teach about racial superiority, for example the old testament being a struggle between the Jews and the Aryan race. Government sponsored boycotts of Jewish owned shops and businesses took place as early as April 1933 and they put signs on them saying things like "don't buy from Jews" The Persecution of the Jews: is then explained in three stages: Stage 1: Denial of rights: From 1933 till 1938 the Jews lost various rights which included, they lost the right to be German citizens, they didn't receive protection from the police, it was illegal for them to inherit land, they were banned from parks, baths and restaurants, it was illegal for Jews to marry a German and Jewish schoolchildren were ridiculed and humiliated in front of classes on regular basis. During the period 1933 - 1938 Jews were also sent to concentration camps, but not in the large number to follow in the Second World War, nor were they killed in them at this stage.
They were just imprisoned due to their response to the Nazi rule or when they were seen as a threat to the Nazis. Stage 2: acceleration of persecution: In November 1938 the Reichskristallnacht was a massive uprising against the Jews. Across Germany Jewish property, homes and synagogues were vandalized burnt down and defaced. Thousands of Jews were injured and there were deaths. The SA probably organised it although no official order was found. The government said it was a spontaneous uprising.
By 1941 the Jews had lost all civil liberties including the right to choose their children's names and were given an official list of names that were allowed, they were forced to live in a sealed area of town called the ghetto and they had to wear a yellow star of david on their clothes. Stage 3: (1945 the holocaust) after the conquest of Eastern Europe the Jewish population of Germany had grown to about 8 million. The Nazis held the "wannsee conference" in 1942 to decide how to deal with the Jews. There, they decided on the final solution, that Jews would be exploited as far as possible and forced to work to the point of death and if they were incapable of doing jobs they were to be killed. The final solution was therefore a policy designed to rid the third Reich of the Jews. This would be achieved through initially the deployment of Einsatzgruppen (mobile death squads) and later the introduction of death camps such as Auschwitz which were designed for killing as many people as possible and disposing of the dead bodies and the remaining Jews died because they were overworked and under fed.
The holocaust is estimated to have resulted in the mass murder of about 6 million Jews. In summary, the holocaust (as well as the Third Reich as a whole) takes a fairly important place within the history of the Second World War in English schools. It could also be said that it is fairly critical of the reaction of the allied powers ( US , Britain, and Soviet Union) in terms of a) not recognizing the mass murder even when evidence was piling up and b) rejecting Jewish refugees and not granting them asylum.
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