HOL0055

 

 

Written evidence submitted by Chris Jezewski

 

 

  1. It is recognised that the Holocaust is a complex and often emotive topic that would be difficult to cover in detail but there are some deficiencies in the education on the subject.

 

  1. The comprehensive study “Teaching about the Holocaust in English Secondary Schools” published by UCL [a] in 2009 stated: “Two content areas appear to dominate teachers’ coverage of the Holocaust:  the period of persecution in the 1930s and a focus on Auschwitz-Birkenau. Other key aspects of the Holocaust, including the pre-war lives of Jewish people and important stages in the development of genocide (for example, the Einsatzgruppen, Wannsee Conference and Operation Reinhard) appear to receive less attention.” [p8, item 5] And, a few sentences later: “When asked to consider what the term, ‘the Holocaust’ means, the most commonly shared understanding among teachers is that the Holocaust was the persecution and murder of a range of victims targeted by the Nazi regime.” [p8, item 7]

 

  1. It is unlikely that these findings have changed much in the last few years. There remains a focus on victims and the Auschwitz-centric approach of organisations such as the Holocaust Education Trust (HET).

 

  1. There is a tendency to define the Holocaust as – just – the persecution of Jews with some mention of other more modern day discrimination categories of victims. This affects the way the subject is taught and which groups are asked to comment on how and what is taught (or commemorated). It is generally accepted that there were 6 million Jewish victims killed in the Shoah but there were 11 million victims of the Holocaust. The vast majority of these other 5 million victims are rarely, if ever, mentioned. Instead, due to the location of the German death camps there is some inadvertent and insidious revision of history.   

 

  1. The following 3 examples illustrate the problem.

 

Example 1. From the government website, with the Prime Minister accepting the recommendations in the cross-party Holocaust Commission report:

 

 

 

So, in one sentence it is mentioned, as a criticism, that students did not know that other “citizens” were complicit (as perpetrators) in the Holocaust and in the next sentence there is a direct and unqualified link between the killings sites and Poland. This is very misleading. Was Poland on the side of Germany? NO! Poland had the fourth largest Allied army. It was a Polish RAF (303) squadron that had the most enemy kills during the Battle of Britain. (Plus, Enigma etc.)

 

 

Example 2: From the BBC:


“The Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp in modern day Poland was where more than a million people, most of them Jews, were killed by the Nazis during the course of World War II.”

This is rather typical of the BBC; they have placed a concentration camp in modern day Poland and again failed to follow their own confused style guide [b]. “Camps such as Auschwitz and Sobibor were in German- or Nazi-occupied Poland.”

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-22384585

 

 

Example 3:

 

Earlier this month, a local newspaper reported a HET organised visit to Auschwitz as: “Two sixth formers were so moved following a trip to a concentration camp in Poland that they set up a memorial at their school.”
Sadly, this is typical reporting of a HET organised visit to Auschwitz. In nearly every HET organised visit (or talk at a school) that has been reported in a newspaper over the last few years [evidence can be provided] it will be stated that the concentration camp is (or was) in Poland. The Press have also reported these as visits as to a “Polish concentration camp”.  HET has an obvious Auschwitz-centric approach – “Lessons from Auschwitz” – (LFA) and a focus on victims. “The LFA Project aims to increase knowledge and understanding of the Holocaust for young people and to clearly highlight what can happen if prejudice and racism become acceptable.”

 

 

  1. Was prejudice and racism therefore somehow acceptable in Poland? What HET fails to do is explain Auschwitz in the context of the brutal German occupation when that part of Poland had been annexed into Germany to provide “Lebensraum” for the German Third Reich. It seems to suit the HET purpose to link the camp just with Poland and to ignore Polish victims. Poles were the first prisoners in Auschwitz and they also constituted 40% of the registered prisoners. Instead HET seems to imply that Poles were virtual Nazis since they must have been complicit with their supposed (and/or falsely stereotypical) prejudice and racism due to the location of the camp. The German invasion and occupation are simply ignored. It does make it easier to teach without having to explain the complexity or factual history.  There is a clue in the name of the camp and in the infamous sign above the main entrance; both are in German (not Nazi).

 

  1. UNESCO describes this world heritage site as: “Auschwitz Birkenau, German Nazi Concentration and Extermination Camp (1940-1945)”. [c] It is considered acceptable to refer to the present day Museum and Memorial site in Poland as the former German Nazi concentration/death camp. Or, if referenced during WW2, it should (must!) be described as a “Nazi camp in German occupied Poland”. The distinctions, which should ripple through all educational materials, are considered important and are supported by all responsible relevant organisations.

 

  1. One of the internationally agreed definitions of Holocaust Denial and Distortion is:
     

“Attempts to blur the responsibility for the establishment of concentration and death camps devised and operated by Nazi Germany by putting blame on other nations or ethnic groups.”

http://www.holocaustremembrance.com/working-definition-holocaust-denial-and-distortion

 

  1. There appears to be no hesitation in the mention and association of Poland with the Holocaust and the (German) camps but the actual perpetrators, if mentioned, are just referred to, by some form of weird political correctness as “Nazis”. 

 

  1. It should be stated in Holocaust education that no country - other than Poland - fought the German Nazis for longer, lost a greater percentage of population, suffered greater destruction but also saved more Jews from the Nazis than any other country. This is also despite the fact that only in German occupied Poland was there a German mandated death penalty for any person (i.e. Pole) and their family for helping Jews. It is estimated up to 50,000 Poles were executed for trying to provide such assistance.

 

  1. These 3 examples (above) illustrate a lack of knowledge and education on the Holocaust. It is not just an issue of semantics. Back in April, the Director of the FBI created a storm when he wrongly listed Poland as an accomplice of Germany. But, at least he used the word “German”. Usually, the perpetrators of the Holocaust are just referred to as Nazis. There is an incredible reluctance to be factually and historically accurate and explicitly state that the Nazis were 100% German. Not all German were Nazis but the war and the camps were the responsibility of the sovereign state of Germany and not what has become a strange contemporary practice of transferring all the war crimes and heinous activities to the mysterious and apparently stateless Nazis. It seems acceptable to mention Poland but apparently unacceptable to mention Germany and Germans. It is a major problem since, as the examples above demonstrate, some people may think the Nazis were Polish since that is the ONLY country that is usually ever mentioned. However, nothing could be further from the actual and irrefutable truth.

 

  1. Poles were the second biggest category of victims killed at Auschwitz and they outnumber all the other non-Jewish categories added together but Polish people are NEVER mentioned as Holocaust victims. No other country lost a greater percentage of population in the war against Germany. No other country suffered greater destruction. The US Holocaust museum states that: “…the Germans killed at least 1.9 million non-Jewish Polish civilians during World War II”. [d]

 

  1. Modern notions on types of discrimination are often misleadingly applied when Holocaust victims are mentioned, Eg. LGBT, Blacks, Disabled, Roma/Gypsies, plus sometimes “and others” or “political” prisoners (/dissidents) are mentioned.

 

  1. The facts are that “only” approx 15,000 homosexual (mainly German) men were persecuted. The number of these executed has not been established. The number of Black victims is not known but is probably measured in hundreds (mostly Allied POWs). The German Nazis killed an estimated 200,000 disabled people and up to 220,000 Roma. Approx. 1,400 Jehovah Witnesses were killed in the German camps.  These numbers are stated not to produce a hierarchy of victims but to demonstrate that the second biggest category of civilian victims is never mentioned. 

 

“Of the 11 million people killed during the Holocaust, six million were Polish citizens. Three million were Polish Jews and another three million were Polish Christians.”

https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Holocaust/NonJewishVictims.html

 

  1. How do these irrefutable facts on victims compare with Recommendation 1 in the Holocaust Commission Report:


“However, it would be an injustice to the memory of those other victims not to reflect upon their tragic experiences too. Amongst these victims were members of the Roma community, Jehovah’s Witnesses, political dissidents, homosexuals and people with mental and physical disabilities.”

https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/398645/Holocaust_Commission_Report_Britains_promise_to_remember.pdf

 

  1. There is a great injustice and massive omission. Over 40% (4.5 million) of the victims are apparently unworthy of a mention. There is no mention of Poles – the biggest category of civilians that were killed. The Polish Gentiles are relegated to the disparaging “political dissidents”. This is actually a furtherance of Nazi German propaganda since “Political” was the category used by the German Nazis to describe their Polish prisoners. To state the obvious, one cannot be a dissident in one’s own country when it has been invaded and brutally occupied by another country. The so-called “political” and only crime committed was being “Polish”.

 

  1. But, the Holocaust Commission and the Holocaust Education Trust totally ignore Polish victims.

 

  1. 75,000 Poles were killed just in Auschwitz. That camp started as a place for Polish prisoners and they were the first ones to be executed. The Polish victims are never mentioned despite outnumbering all the other non-Jewish victim categories added together.  These facts are missing from the Lessons from Auschwitz promoted by HET. This approach also ignores other events, for example, one of the worst atrocities was in the aftermath of the Warsaw Uprising when 50,000 Poles were executed in the Wola massacre.

http://auschwitz.org/en/history/the-number-of-victims/overall-numbers-by-ethnicity-or-category-of-deportee

 

  1. None of the examples (1-3) above were factually accurate or truthful since it was not mentioned that Poland was a German occupied country and that the camps were German. This seems to be a fundamental and widespread (seemingly deliberate) lack of education. Instead, there is a historical revisionism that directly links Nazi camps with Poland with no contexts or explanations.

 

  1. These deficiencies are relevant to the two main learning outcomes mentioned in the “Britain’s Promise to Remember - The Prime Minister’s Holocaust Commission Report”.

https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/398645/Holocaust_Commission_Report_Britains_promise_to_remember.pdf

 

  1. First learning outcome is “Knowledge of the historical facts”. In the document there is again use of the word Nazi instead of German but there is mention of “other victims”. An additional context would be to explain the thousand year history of Jews in Poland. How Poland was the only country that gave Jews sanctuary and legal rights which resulted in Poland being the (thriving) centre of the Jewish world for hundreds of years. This also helps to explain why before the German Nazis invaded 10% of the Polish population was Jewish.

 

  1. Second learning outcome: “2: Appreciation of roles and responsibilities”. It is worth emphasising that Poland did not surrender to or collaborate with Nazi Germany. There were no Polish SS brigades or any Polish guards at the German camps. This is unlike every other German occupied territory. Even GB does not have a squeaky clean record with regard to the German occupation of the Channel Islands. It is worth reiterating the German occupation of Poland was exceptionally brutal and attempts to cast the Polish population as “bystanders” is maliciously and factually incorrect. It is a big omission to ignore the Yad Vashem list of Righteous and the fatal price that many Poles paid for helping Jews.  6,532 Polish people are currently acknowledged by the state of Israel to have helped Jews. It is widely accepted that due to the summary executions of rescuers and their charges that took place in German occupied Poland that this number is a considerable understatement.
    http://www.yadvashem.org/yv/en/righteous/statistics.asp

 

  1. Incidentally, Poland was the only German occupied country where there was a German mandated death penalty for any person and their family (i.e. Poles) discovered assisting Jews, there are more Poles on the Yad Vashem list of Righteous than any other nation. 

 

  1. The Holocaust Commission report does not mention the Righteous. This is a bad oversight since it should be a significant aspect for both learning outcomes and to prevent false generalisations being made. To be clear, unlike other German occupied countries there was no collaboration of the Polish government with the Nazi regime. Poles did not participate in the persecution, capture or imprisonment of Jews. There were no Polish camp guards. It is unfair and selective to try and portray the population of Poland as either bystanders or accomplices of Nazi Germany. Poland was unique amongst all other European countries that suffered the German occupation. Hindsight should not be applied selectively in the pursuance of simplistic educational objectives.

 

  1. To further illustrate why the omissions and bias are significant deficiencies, these extracts are from the Jewish press:

 

“Poland was occupied by Germany. Occupation was an act of State, not of the Nazi party. So there was no Nazi-occupation, no Nazi army, no Nazi laws. There was German-occupation, a German Army – the Wehrmacht – and German Laws. These were instruments of the State.”

http://www.jewishjournal.com/opinion/article/what_was_president_obamas_mistake_20120531

 

  1. “Germans, not Nazis, uber alles

But a simple, undiplomatic truth must be stated: The prevailing practice (extending even to scholarly literature) of making reference to "Nazis" when we mean "Germans" (and "Austrians") constitutes a dangerous distortion of history, one that imperils the way in which the Shoah will be remembered in the future. One hundred years from now, will it be clear to anyone but social scientists that Nazism was born and thrived on German (and Austrian) soil - or that, although vast numbers of local people across the continent took part, the architects and prime executors of the plan to make Europe judenrein were Germans (and Austrians)? Or will it only be understood that people of many nationalities were accomplices to anonymous Nazis who annihilated the Jewish population of Nazi-occupied Europe?”

http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/opinion/germans-not-nazis-uber-alles-1.274741

 

  1. Several examples have been provided showing how Holocaust education and commemoration are being subverted by the following:


i. Issues around phrases such as “Nazi camp in Poland”, “concentration camp in Poland”, etc.

 

ii. The total absence of any mention of Poles as victims. There is also the derogatory and misleading use of the German Nazi category of “political” translated by media, educators and Number 10 into political opponents or dissidents and current categories of discrimination being applied to describe Holocaust victims. Everyone ignores the second biggest category of Holocaust victims – Slavs - such as Poles.

 

iii. The failure to mention the nation – Germany - that was solely responsible for the Holocaust. Nazi is not a synonym for German. The post-war deNazification of Germany seems to have created an ironic and “politically correct” Nazi race.

 

iv. A total lack of context with regard to mentioning Poland; either as an ally or of Polish victims and rescuers. This is considered inexcusable from the Holocaust Commission.

 

  1. The issues revolve around the teaching of historical fact and being accurate. Sadly, some people and organisations associate Poland with the Holocaust without understanding (or teaching) the truthful and significant contexts. This has both conscious and subliminal affects on both students and adults. There are also those who actively pursue anti-Polish attitudes and resort to crass generalising to further certain propaganda and cultural stereotypes.

 

  1. Hitler and Stalin both used education to indoctrinate the youth of their countries. It is important not make the same mistakes by teaching a selective history on the Holocaust that confuses the victims with the actual perpetrators. All the victims should be remembered.

 

 

 

[a] http://www.holocausteducation.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/Final-Report-Master-Document-19-October-2009-_HIMONIDES_.pdf

[b] http://www.bbc.co.uk/academy/journalism/article/art20130716145608347

[c]  http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/31  http://whc.unesco.org/en/news/363

[d] http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005473

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

November 2015

 

[1] https://www.gov.uk/government/news/prime-minister-pledges-prominent-holocaust-memorial-for-britain